In Transit: A Palestinian Shares His Journey Of Escape From Gaza

Carrying my sick child on my back through the streets of Gaza, where bystanders are both snipers as well as a queue of thousands waiting for their turn to ‘cross the line’—I walked, I ran, I stumbled and I stood up again. I didn’t know where to look, where to get help from, whom to tell that she was vomiting and she needed immediate treatment. No help was in sight. Hundreds of eyes from behind the military helmets were looking at us.

We were confined. Trapped in our own land.

Our journey from north of Gaza to the southern part—up to Rafah—at the border of Egypt didn’t start today or yesterday. We have been in transit forever since our grandparents were thrown out of their houses during Nakba of 1948. They found their new shelter in a beach refugee camp—Al Shati. My parents also grew up there and gradually it became our home.

Since my childhood, I never got the taste of freedom. As people growing up under occupation, the only thing that we yearned for was freedom from oppression, exploitation and incessant attacks on our dignity and livelihood. It was impossible to lead a normal life here. We couldn’t even plan the next day, let alone plan a life. Our destiny is controlled by the occupiers. Nonetheless, we survived. But things changed again after October 7.

However, history didn’t start on October 7. We have been going through this for the last 75 years. What we are currently witnessing is similar to the 1948 Nakba. At that time, there was rarely any coverage but nowadays, through a few media outlets and social media, people get to know about our suffering. The occupiers are breaking every law in the world. They are destroying everything.

Israel was founded on our suffering. They stand on nothing but ethnic cleansing of the people.

As the attacks resumed in October and houses were bombed, and children, women and men were killed indiscriminately, we started counting our days. We never wanted to leave our house at the beach camp. But I, along with my four children and two nieces, who had come to our place as her family was attacked and their house razed, had only two choices. Either to stay and be killed or to escape and breathe. I would have never left the house but for these children. I was worried about them.

As the bombing intensified, we understood that we had to trade our home against our survival. With heavy hearts and the burden of memory, we left our home. For a while, we made it to a house near Al Shifa hospital but that fateful night again made us refugees. They threatened us and asked us to leave immediately. Our journey towards uncertainty resumed again.

We shifted to a relative’s place in the middle of Gaza city and thought to stay there for some time. But, no, it was not the end. The bombing continued and within three days, we left that place as well and following a long journey, reached Khan Younis—in the southern part of the ravaged city.

In two weeks, they started bombing Khan Younis. We had no place to escape anymore. Where would we go? Is there any safe space in the whole city? No roof is strong enough to protect you from splinters. Deaths, rubble, dust from ravaged houses and debris of memories are our only friend and we are travellers of an uncertain time.

We knew fully well that they wouldn’t leave us any space to breathe. So, we stood up again—only to walk towards another uncertainty. Walking for more than five kilometres with my sick children, we ultimately reached Rafah and till now fortunately, we are alive.

However, life rarely has any meaning anymore. There is no fuel or gas available for cooking food. We are arranging for wood from surrounding areas to toast bread. Food items are the rarest things in the market. And whatever is available is too expensive for us. We wake up contemplating what we are going to eat throughout the day. But still, we survive and continue counting the days.

Just before we entered Rafah—when I was rushing to get my child some medical aid and was waiting for hours in the long queue to cross the line to go to the ‘safer’ side—a fighter jet bombed people. It was just a few hundred metres away. We must run—to save our lives, to save our children—the future of Palestine. This tiring journey never ends. We are, and have been, in transit in search of a ‘home’.

(As told to Abhik Bhattacharya)