For 14 months, Zahra’s family of seven has been searching for a safe place to live, moving from area to area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Since December they have been living in Gaza City, in a partially bombed house in the Sati refugee camp.

“Since the first day of the war, the situation has been difficult – but now it looks like a real hell,” says Zahra in a telephone conversation with DW. “We don’t know if we’re going to live or be killed until this is all over.”

Despite orders from the Israeli army (IDF), Zahra’s family did not move to the south of the Gaza Strip fearing, among other things, that she would not be able to return to her home again.

“We didn’t leave the north earlier because we knew that all the areas were being bombed anyway and we hoped that the military operations in the north would end soon. But instead things got even worse,” says Zahra. “Our house in Jabalia camp was completely destroyed months ago and now we are displaced from one area to another.”

Following the Hamas rocket attacks last week, the IDF announced it had hit more than 100 targets in the Gaza Strip.

Tragic conditions

In addition to the military operations, the adverse weather conditions in the region cause floods and destruction in the settlements. And at the same time people do not have access to adequate humanitarian aid – partly because there is a lot of looting of supplies, as humanitarian organizations have repeatedly warned.

Civil defense forces in Gaza said on Sunday that Israeli strikes had killed several of the people tasked with protecting aid supplies in the southern Gaza Strip, and that the Israeli army was shelling neighborhoods and blowing up apartment buildings in northern Gaza with a toll several dead and injured civilians. According to health services controlled by Hamas, Israeli attacks have killed more than 45,800 Palestinians since the start of the war.

Since October, the IDF appears to have targeted Jabalia and the area north of Gaza City, claiming that both Hamas and other paramilitary groups are regrouping there. Although the IDF claims that the orders to civilians to evacuate these areas are intended to protect them, Palestinians and humanitarian organizations say that there is no safe place in Gaza and that the ongoing displacements only worsen the already severe humanitarian crisis.

In late December, a UN delegation was allowed to travel to the north of the Gaza Strip. Jonathan Whittall, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in East Jerusalem, said in a video on X that “the people here have no food, no water, no hygiene products, nothing […] We must be able to provide them with the basics for their survival.”

He added that in the last two months, the UN has submitted 140 coordination requests to the IDF to visit the region, but all have been rejected. The Israeli agency responsible for the coordination and access of humanitarian aid to Gaza responded to X that “recent claims about rejected applications for the coordination of humanitarian aid delivery are misleading.”

Israel’s plans are unclear

According to UN estimates, 10,000 to 15,000 people remain in the northern part of the Gaza Strip – without however being able to determine the exact number with certainty. Much of the area has reportedly been evacuated and leveled, fueling speculation that Israel intends to maintain the area as a closed buffer zone after the war ends.

The IDF denies it is carrying out the so-called “General’s Plan,” which calls for the removal of residents from northern Gaza by designating civilians as military targets and blocking food and medical supplies.

Last week members of the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense committee called on Israeli Defense Minister Katz to order the destruction of all water, food and energy sources in the area, protesting that the IDF has yet to defeat Hamas.

Residents report severe shortages of water and food, while constant shelling and gunfire make all movement – ​​including access to humanitarian routes and movement south – impossible.

On their way to the Sati camp, Zahra and her family passed through an Israeli checkpoint. “They let me through with my three daughters, but my husband and two sons had to wait for five hours before they were finally allowed through,” Zahra points out.

Battle for survival

Matar Zomlot and his family stayed on the other side in the Jabalia refugee camp for most of the war – but they too were eventually forced to leave the camp.

“There were constant bombings and explosions, we were constantly living in fear,” says Zomlot in a telephone conversation with DW. The family managed to survive by finding food in various abandoned houses. “I was finding food from some nearby houses, after I had contacted the owners and they had told me that they had left food or packaged food behind.”

In December and with the fighting raging, the family headed for Gaza City. “We were afraid they would shoot us,” says Zomlot. On the way “we met a tank and some soldiers who stopped us. They checked our documents and let us pass,” said Zomlot, who now lives with relatives in Gaza City.

Instead of moving further south, the family chose to stay in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. There is now the Nejarim Corridor: a corridor of military checkpoints that runs from east to west and bisects the area. Palestinians who cross to the south cannot go back to the north again. In fact, according to an investigative report by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, several soldiers serving in the area state that many unarmed Palestinians who approached with the intention of returning to the northern part were executed.

The UN says around 90% of Gaza’s 2.1 million residents have been displaced – and there is great uncertainty over whether they will ever be able to return home.

“We don’t know what our fate will be,” says Zahra. “We don’t know what’s going to happen. But we pray that the war will end soon and that we will be able to return to our neighborhoods and homes, even if they have been turned into ruins.”

Edited by: Giorgos Passas