Israeli military begins ground invasion of southern Lebanon

GAZA/CAIRO: The Bakrons and Al-Bareems, two families from opposite ends of Gaza, have criss-crossed the rubble-strewn territory many times during 21 months of war, in search of food and shelter from Israeli attacks.

They’ve sought refuge in the homes of friends and relatives, in school classrooms and in tents, moving frequently as the Israeli military has ordered civilians from one zone to another.

The Bareems, from southern Gaza, have a disabled child who they have pushed in his wheelchair. The Bakrons, from the north, stopped wandering in May after two children of their children were killed in an airstrike.

“Our story is one of displacement, loss of loved ones, hunger, humiliation and loss of hope,” said Nizar Bakron, 38, who lost his daughter Olina, 10, and son Rebhi, eight.

The families’ experiences illustrate the plight of the 1.9 million Gaza residents — 90 percent of the population — that the United Nations says have been displaced during the conflict.

Israel’s war in Gaza has left much of the enclave in ruins and its people desperate from hunger. It was triggered by an attack by Islamist group Hamas — which governs the Strip — on Israeli border communities on October 7, 2023 that killed some 1,200 people and took 250 hostage. Before the war, Nizar and his wife Amal, four years his junior, had a happy life in Shejaia, a teeming district in the east of Gaza City. Their eldest Adam is 12; the youngest, Youssef, a baby.

Photographs, seen by Reuters, show family parties at home and days at the beach.

“When the October 7 attack happened, I knew it wouldn’t be something good for us,” Nizar said. They left home the next day for Amal’s mother’s house further south in Zahra, he said.

Five days later Israel began ordering civilians in northern Gaza to move south and, on October 27, it launched a ground invasion.

Throughout the war Israel has issued evacuation orders in areas where it plans to conduct operations — though it has also struck elsewhere during those periods.

Israel says the orders protect civilians but it strikes wherever it locates Hamas fighters, who hide among the population. Hamas denies using civilians as shields.

Palestinians accuse Israel of using the evacuation orders to uproot the population, which it denies.

The family left for Nuseirat, an old refugee camp in central Gaza, where they crammed into an apartment owned by Amal’s relatives for five months.

Israel’s bombardment was heaviest in the first months of the war. The Gaza Health Ministry, controlled by Hamas, said the death toll reached 32,845 by the end of March 2024. It has now passed 59,000 people, the ministry says.

Food and fuel were becoming very expensive, with little aid arriving. In April, Israel issued an evacuation order and the Bakrons went further south to Rafah on the border with Egypt where there was more to eat.

They loaded the car and a trailer with mattresses, clothes, kitchen equipment and a solar panel and drove 15 miles along roads lined with ruins.

In Rafah, they squeezed into a classroom of a UN school which they shared with Nizar’s two brothers and their families — about 20 people. Their savings were quickly disappearing.

Weeks later, a new Israeli evacuation order moved them to Khan Younis, a few kilometers away, and another crowded classroom.

In January, a ceasefire allowed them to move back north to Nuseirat, where the family had land. They cleared a room in a damaged building to live in.

“We thought things would get better,” Nizar said.

But, after less than two months, the ceasefire collapsed on March 18. Two days later, Bakron’s sister, her husband and two daughters were killed in an airstrike in Khan Younis, he said.

As Israeli operations escalated, the family fled to Gaza City. They pitched a tent — the first time they had to live in one — against a building on Wehda Street, a central district. On May 25, as most of the family slept, Nizar was sitting outside, talking on the phone, when an airstrike hit and the building collapsed.

He pulled away the debris but Olina and Rebhi were dead. His wife Amal and eldest Adam were injured, and the baby Youssef’s leg was broken.

Nizar does not know how they can move again. The family is in mourning and their car was damaged in the strike, he said.

The UN estimates nearly 90 percent of Gaza’s territory is covered by Israeli evacuation orders or within Israeli militarized zones, leaving the population squeezed into two swathes of land where food is increasingly scarce. Israel says restrictions on aid are needed to prevent it being diverted to Hamas.

World Health Organization chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Wednesday Gaza is

suffering from man-made starvation

.

Amal, who still has bruising on her face and wears a brace upon her arm after the attack, grieves for her two children: “My life changed, from having everything to having nothing, after being displaced.”

“We fear for our lives“

Majed Al-Bareem, 32, was a teacher before the war in Bani Suheila, a town east of Khan Younis. He and his wife Samia, 27, have a two-year-old son, Samir. They lived in a pretty two-story house with an external staircase that had plants in pots running up the steps.

During Israel’s initial offensive, which was focused on northern Gaza, the family stayed put. But early in 2024, Israeli forces pushed into Khan Younis and the Bareems fled their home.

They learned afterwards it had been destroyed.

“I had a beautiful house which we built with our sweat and effort,” Majed said. He showed Reuters photos of the ruins.

They went to Rafah with Majed’s mother, Alyah, 62 and his three sisters. The youngest, Rafah, 19, has Down Syndrome.

Days before they left Khan Younis, his eldest sister’s husband was shot dead. Her son, Joud, nine, is in a wheelchair.

At first, the family stayed in a tent provided by UN aid agencies in a district called Nasr in northern Rafah.

Three months later, Israel ordered civilians to evacuate and the family left for Mawasi, a rural area nearby where displacement camps were growing, he said. Although Israel’s military had designated Mawasi a safe zone, it struck it throughout the summer, killing scores of people, according to local health authorities. Israel said it was targeting militants hiding in the area.

Since the two-month ceasefire ended in March the family has moved repeatedly — so often that Majed said he lost count — between Bani Suheila, Khan Younis and Mawasi.

“We fear for our lives so, as soon as they order us to leave, we do so,” he said.

Crossing Gaza’s ruined streets with a wheelchair has added to the difficulty. During one journey in May, he and Joud were separated from the family. It took them four hours to travel the five miles to Mawasi along roads littered with debris.

“It was exhausting and scary because we could hear gunfire and bombing,” he said.

The family is currently in a tent in Mawasi. Their savings are nearly gone and they can only rarely afford extra rations to supplement the little they get from charitable kitchens.

“We are tired of displacement. We are tired of lack of food,” said Majed’s mother, Alyah.

Last week, Majed went to Bani Suheila hoping to buy some flour. A shell landed nearby, wounding him in the torso with a shrapnel fragment, he said. It was removed in hospital but left him weak. With Israel and Hamas conducting ceasefire negotiations, the United States has voiced optimism about a deal. Majed says the renewed talks have given him some hope, but he fears they will fall apart, like previous attempts.

“I don’t think anyone can bear what we are bearing,” he said. “It has been two years of the war, hunger, killing, destruction and displacement.”