Gaza: After weeks of Israeli bombardment left them with nowhere to go, hundreds of Palestinians were taken to an old Gaza prison built to hold murderers and thieves.
Yasmeen al-Dardasi said she and her family had to transport the injured who could not be saved as they were evacuated from a district in the southern city of Khan Younis to the Central Detention and Rehabilitation Center.
They spent a day under the tree before moving to the old prison, where they now live in a chapel. The chapel provides some protection from the scorching sun, but it does little to protect them.
Al-Dardasi's husband has damaged kidneys and only one lung but has no mattress or blankets.
“We are not settled here either,” said al-Dardasi, who, like many Palestinians, fears another uprooting.
Israel says it is making every effort to protect civilians.
Many Palestinians, displaced multiple times, say no place is safe from Israeli attacks that have reduced large parts of the Gaza Strip to rubble.
An Israeli airstrike killed at least 90 Palestinians in a humanitarian zone in the Al-Mawazi district on July 13, the territory's health ministry said, in a strike that targeted unidentified Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.
On Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said an Israeli military strike on an area east of Khan Younis had killed 14 people.
Entire neighborhoods have been flattened in one of the most densely populated places in the world, where poverty and unemployment are rampant.
According to the UN, nine out of 10 people in Gaza are internally displaced.
Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family they should flee for their safety as tanks were approaching. Her family did not have time to change and left wearing prayer clothes, she said.
After sleeping on the sand outside, they sought refuge inside the prison amid the rubble and holes in the building from the fighting that had taken place there. The prisoners were released long before the Israeli attack.
“We didn’t take anything with us. We walked here with our children,” she said, adding that many of the women had five or six children and finding water was difficult.
She holds her niece, who was born during the conflict that killed her father and brother.
Palestinian health officials say that Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air and ground attacks since October 7.
Hana Al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrives in prison after being expelled six times
If mediators from Egypt, the United States and Qatar fail to reach a ceasefire they have long said is near, she and other Palestinians may have to move again.
“Where should we go? Everywhere we go is dangerous,” she said.
