Since the fierce bombardment of Gaza by Israel began in October 2023, in response to a deadly Hamas attack on the country, over 45,000 Palestinians have been killed, and over 100,000 injured.
Abu Bilal shows his precarious shelter, built under two concrete slabs from his former apartment building.
Amid the devastation, Gazans are embracing any semblance of life they can create. In Khan Younis, Abu Bilal dug out his destroyed home and used the rubble to rebuild the walls. Cement slabs from what had been a multistorey apartment building formed a tenuous lean-to. He showed me around his place, complete with a basic toilet and makeshift plastic sink.
‘Dangerous’, he said of his shelter, which could easily collapse during a storm or airstrike.
In what had been a densely populated neighbourhood, Nabil Azab also showed me around the remains of his home. A former taxi driver, he pointed out the twisted carcass of the vehicle that once earned him his livelihood. Like many Gazan families, his has been displaced multiple times, moving from one tent settlement to another.
When an airstrike hit his tent in the southern city of Rafah – injuring him and other family members – that was enough. They, too, cleared out the debris from their partially destroyed home in Khan Younis and moved back in. Their four-storey building, among the few still standing in the area, leans precariously atop a sandy ridge. In the ground below, the family grows lettuce and other greens to help survive. But it’s not enough.
‘I look at my little daughter as she cries asking for food and I feel helpless,’ Azab told me. ‘There’s nothing that I can do for her. Nothing at all.’”