I’m in Gaza City, my bag is packed, but I refuse to leave my home
Israel’s devastating assault on my city is forcing thousands to flee in search of ‘safety’ that we know doesn't exist, at the cost of losing our homes forever.
A month has passed since Israel’s security cabinet approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s plan to seize control of Gaza City, a campaign Defense Minister Israel Katz later dubbed “Gideon’s Chariots II.”
For those of us still living in parts of the city that Israel had not yet completely leveled, we initially hoped the announcement was just another instance of psychological warfare designed to terrorize us into leaving. Maybe, we thought, Israel would not invade Gaza City again, having already reduced so much of it to rubble. Perhaps U.S. President Donald Trump would intervene, with reports suggesting Hamas had made major concessions to reach a ceasefire and hostage deal.
That hope dissipated when Israeli forces began dropping evacuation notices ordering people to flee to so-called “safe zones” in the south of the Strip. The ground invasion followed almost immediately — first in my neighborhood, Al-Sabra, where I was born and raised, and then in nearby Zeitoun, home to many of my relatives and friends. This morning, the Israeli army escalated its threats to the city’s civilian population, demanding all of us who remain to flee.
Since Aug. 13, Israeli forces have unleashed a devastating wave of airstrikes, artillery fire, and drone attacks on my city, with Al-Sabra and Zeitoun bearing the brunt. Entire blocks have been erased. Thousands have fled. Thousands more remain trapped, pinned down by the bombardment and the constant hum of drones overhead. Corpses lie in the streets, unreachable by emergency teams.
At night, the Israeli military’s explosive-laden robots roam the streets, demolishingaround 300 residential units each day. Detonating in the early hours, the blasts shake the ground around me. If I’m asleep, I jolt awake in terror, my head pounding for hours afterward.
The bombing of multi-story residential towers — which Israel calls “terrorist high-rises” — has added a new and terrifying dimension to Israel’s latest campaign of ethnic cleansing. One of the first targets of this operation was Mushtaha Tower, a 12-story residential building in western Gaza City surrounded by makeshift tents. Israeli warplanes struck it hours after the evacuation order, claiming without evidence that Hamas used it for military purposes.
Smoke rises from the Mushtaha Tower, west of Gaza City, after it was hit by an Israeli airstrike, September 5, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)
Several more high-rises have since been flattened, including Soussi Tower, a 15-story landmark that I could see from my window and used to walk past every day. Its residents were given a mere 20 minutes to gather their belongings before their homes were destroyed.
Dust and debris filled our apartment when the tower collapsed. My family and I coughed as we wept, mourning the loss of our beloved neighborhood and the dozens of families who suddenly found themselves on the streets with no home, no food, and no future.
As I write this, I can hear the rumble of Israeli tanks and bulldozers only a few kilometers away from my home. Hundreds of families in the neighborhood have already fled out of fear, including many who refused to do so during previous invasions.
When I think about the dozens of my friends, relatives, and neighbors already killed during this genocide, I wonder how many more I will lose in the coming days, whose faces I will see for the last time, and whether I myself will make it to the end. I watch my neighbors leaving, knowing it may be the last time I see them. Perhaps they will be killed on the road. Perhaps I will.
By sheer luck, I have managed so far to escape injury and death. I have learned to adapt to what feels like a permanent survival state: I move quickly, stay close to walls, and walk under trees to avoid being spotted by quadcopters. I always keep my hands empty to show I pose no threat, though for many of Israel’s victims this was not enough. I never return the same way I came, and I often walk in a zigzag pattern to make it harder for snipers to target me. I’m constantly ready to drop to the ground at any moment.
My greatest fear is that a missile will tear my body to pieces, leaving me unrecognizable, or that I will be wounded with no one able to reach me, my body left to the stray animals. I am terrified to leave the house out of fear that I might pass by a building just as it is bombed. I know that even if I made it to a hospital, there is no functioning health system left to save me.
Palestinians fleeing Gaza City arrive in central Gaza, September 8, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)
Despite all this, I told my family that I will not leave. Contrary to Israel’s claims, there is nowhere safe for us to go: once it destroys all of Gaza City, it will continue southward to the very “humanitarian zone” it is currently directing us to.
An unbreakable connection
Al-Sabra and Zeitoun are among Gaza City’s oldest and most densely populated neighborhoods — tight-knit communities where families lived long before the Nakba of 1948. Many residents inherited their homes and small businesses from their parents: corner bakeries, carpentry workshops, tailor studios, and traditional trades like pickling and olive pressing.
Before the war, I used to walk their narrow alleys, always struck by the details: the houses pressed so close together they looked like a single block; grandparents sitting on their doorsteps in the afternoon with tea in hand, offering prayers and blessings to passersby; children’s laughter echoing between the streets; and the aroma of musakhan and maqluba drifting from kitchen windows. Known for their hospitality, people here would often welcome strangers with warmth, sometimes even inviting them for lunch after just a brief conversation on the street.
In November 2023, when Israel first threatened to invade my neighborhood, my family refused to leave. We asked ourselves what every other family in Gaza was asking: Where would we go? Is anywhere safe?
But when tanks advanced to within 100 meters of our home and began shelling indiscriminately around us, we made the painful decision to separate into three groups and scatter across Gaza City to relatives’ houses, hoping that if some of us were killed, others might survive. I went with my father to my aunt’s house about two kilometers away in Al-Sahaba, eastern Gaza City, where we stayed for nearly a month.
Every day, we warned each other not to risk going back to check on our house. Yet, like so many who had been forcibly displaced, we found ourselves being drawn back, edging as close as possible to our home before Israeli snipers or quadcopters forced us to turn away.
Each time I set out, I knew I might not return. I could be shot, killed, or left bleeding in the street with no one able to help me. Still, I went — just for the chance at a fleeting moment inside, a cup of coffee, the touch of familiar furniture, or a moment to lie on my bed.
Palestinians carry their belongings amid tents and rubble in the neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan, northern Gaza City, September 1, 2025. (Omar El-Qattaa)
The path back home became a path of grief, with each visit adding a new scar to my memory. I passed ruined buildings that used to give the neighborhood its distinct character, and shaded lanes once lined with trees that had become one with the rubble. I rode along streets where my neighbors had been killed, their blood still visible on the ground. Children’s laughter was replaced by the constant, nerve-shredding buzz of drones and the deafening thunder of artillery shells. Familiar faces, once a source of warmth and comfort, were pale with panic.
One day, as I rode my bicycle near the neighborhood, I suddenly heard the sound of a quadcopter’s propellers behind me. For a few seconds, I froze. Should I lie on the ground? Raise my hands to show I’m an unarmed civilian? I decided to rush out of the area immediately; no matter how little of a threat I posed, there was never a guarantee I would not be killed.
Alone on the street, I pedaled, pushing myself to go faster as the drone’s bullets whizzed past me. I told myself I would never risk it again. I became ill and stayed in bed for two days after the incident. But on the morning of the third day, I went back. When we were finally able to return home safely after Israeli troops finally vacated our neighborhood, it felt like catching our breath after drowning.
For Palestinians, the bond with our homes is not only about walls and stones, but about our very existence. My grandmother, Sharifa, often told me about how she was forced to flee from Jaffa during the Nakba of 1948. Her father carried the house key, convinced the family would return in a few days. Before he died, he gave it to her.
They never went back. The house was lost forever, though they could not bring themselves to accept that truth.
In Gaza today, many of us feel we are living through another Nakba — one even more devastating than that of our grandparents. But unlike in 1948, Palestinians today understand that what is presented to us as “temporary” displacement almost always becomes permanent. That is why so many of us refuse to leave, even as our homes come under fire.
Palestinians fleeing Gaza City arrive in central Gaza, September 8, 2025. (Ali Hassan/Flash90)
Spoons, a plastic cup, an empty plate
In April 2024, only weeks before Israel sealed Rafah Crossing, my father was able to evacuate to Egypt with my mother, whose health had deteriorated due to malnutrition and lack of access to her essential medications. Since then, he has been following the news from Gaza around the clock, his worry for us deeply physical.
He tries to hide his fear during our WhatsApp video calls (whenever the connection allows), but it’s obvious in the trembling of his voice each time he checks in to make sure we’re still alive, especially after reports of airstrikes in Al-Sabra. “I lost 7 kilograms in the past two weeks,” he told me in a video call this past weekend.
I kept insisting that we will not leave, but he urged us to be ready to flee at any moment: to wear loose clothes that we can run in, to keep our shoes right next to where we sleep, and to make sure one person stays awake while the others rest. He told us, when possible, to feed the children — my nephews and nieces — more than they can eat, because it might be their last meal for days.
If we flee, he said, we should split into groups, keep our distance, even take separate paths to maximize our chances of survival. The children should run first; if any of them are wounded, the adults can carry them. We must carry only what is essential, and no matter what, we must keep running.
But we both know this time is different. Israel’s current operation in Gaza City feels even more violent and destructive than anything that came before. It is not about bombing specific areas anymore, but about leaving nothing standing, as they did in Rafah, Jabalia, and Beit Hanoun.
My sisters and I packed small bags with the bare necessities. Even though it is still the end of summer, we included winter clothes and small blankets; we don’t know what we’ll have access to in the future. We packed spoons, a plastic cup, an empty plate, items that become priceless when lost. And we packed our IDs, passports, and a small piece of paper with personal details and phone numbers in case we are killed or wounded.
Palestinians carry their belongings amid tents and rubble in the neighborhood of Sheikh Radwan, northern Gaza City, September 1, 2025. (Omar El-Qattaa)
I look around the house at my library — filled with the books that shaped me, like George Orwell’s “1984” and “Animal Farm” — at the clothes I chose carefully over the years, at the desk where I studied and continue to write. I glance at the mattresses, the doors, the floor. Then I look at the small bag in my hand. I wish I could fit my whole life, my entire home, into that bag.
Displacement is not just moving from one place to another. It feels like a version of hell where you are split in two, your body in one place, your soul trapped somewhere else.
I know many who evacuated to the south in search of safety, only to find no shelter, no space to sleep, and no protection from Israel’s onslaught. So they returned to their homes in the north, even with the constant risk of being killed. For those in the south who manage to find a small studio to rent, the prices are unimaginably high, sometimes hundreds of times more than they can afford.
The Israeli government claims there is a “safe zone” and humanitarian aid in the south. But all that awaits us there is more humiliation, deprivation, and destruction. Just like in the north, the goal seems to be our complete annihilation.
My grandmother kept her house key from 1948 until her death. I have no key to keep, only a bag. And I wonder: Will my children carry this bag the way she carried that key?