Snapshots from 200 days of war

As we have tried to keep up during 200 days of incomprehensible developments coming from across the border in Gaza, we have spoken to dozens of Palestinians undergoing the Occupation’s violations across the strip.

Here, we revisit some of the stories they’ve shared with us since October — just a few examples of the daily tragedies endured by over 2 million Palestinians living in the strip.

Motassem, witness to the Nabulsi massacre

Motassem was among the thousands of people who gathered at the Nabulsi roundabout at dawn on February 28, awaiting the arrival of food aid trucks, which rarely reached the northern part of the strip. 

Since the Occupation began its ground incursion, its forces have restricted access to the Kuwait roundabout in Zaytoun neighborhood on Salah Eddin Street and the Nabulsi roundabout on the coastal Rashid street — sites on the main roads connecting Gaza’s north to its south. 

Israeli authorities had announced a few days earlier that the military would take over the task of coordinating the entry of humanitarian aid into the northern Gaza Strip and had set up a military checkpoint near the roundabout. 

Palestinians waiting for the incoming aid trucks lit fires with firewood to stave off the cold.

When the trucks arrived and civilians started rushing toward them, some climbing onto the trucks to help unload the aid, Occupation forces opened fire on the crowd. Motassem fled as citizens fell all around him. He hid behind a small hill, and when the gunfire subsided, he raised his head to see dozens lying dead on the ground with flour sacks in their arms.

The Occupation killed 112 civilians and injured 760 others in the Nabulsi massacre, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry spokesperson.

Avichay Adraee, a spokesperson for the Israeli military, denied that the Occupation had opened fire on civilians awaiting food aid, calling the reports false in a statement posted on X, and the IDF claimed that dozens of people were injured amid a stampede to get aid.

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Qreqae found his mother’s body at Shifa Medical Complex after a two week search

For two weeks, journalist Mohamed Qreqae, who reports from the northern part of the Gaza Strip, searched for his mother in shelters and displacement centers in southern Gaza.

He had lost contact with her following the Occupation’s raid on the Shifa Medical Complex in March, when the military told thousands of women to leave the hospital and go south.

The women from Shifa told Qreqae that they last saw his mother as they were rushing to exit the medical complex, describing her as exhausted amid the hasty retreat, sitting on the ground to rest.

When the Occupation finally withdrew from Shifa on April 1, Qreqae found his mother’s body. She had been killed by gunshot.

She was one of hundreds of bodies found in the complex, some with their hands bound. Hundreds of pictures and video footage show the devastation at the facility, with buildings crumbling and charred.

The IDF stated that they killed 200 Palestinians and arrested 500 more in the medical complex and its vicinity, claiming that they were affiliated with resistance factions.

The raid on Shifa followed reports that meetings were convened in the facility between clan leaders, UN officials and Gaza’s police to establish a mechanism for aid delivery to northern Gaza.

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Tamer stayed with his family in Gaza City, refusing to leave

Tamer Atallah and his family refused to leave their home in the center of Gaza City and head to the south of the strip.

Since the first weeks of its aggression, the Occupation had dropped leaflets in their neighborhood, urging them to evacuate their homes. 

Before the war, Atallah’s family earned a living as event and wedding photographers. As life collapsed around them in Gaza, they lost their livelihood, and the Occupation forces destroyed their workplace and equipment.

Aid and supply deliveries to the north were rare, and his family relied on one meal a day to survive. They collected rainwater for drinking, as the water supply to the strip was cut off at the onset of the aggression.

The gas was cut off too, so those who remained in north Gaza survived by grinding wheat and corn to make bread over woodfire.

But Atallah and his family, as well as some of their neighbors, saw the overcrowded displacement shelters in the south and became more resolute in their decision to stay.

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Israa al-Ghafry said hygiene essentials are unattainable in Rafah

Israa al-Ghafry, from Gaza City, now lives in a tent in Rafah. The days have grown quickly hotter over recent weeks, with temperatures 9 degrees above the average for this time of year, according to the Palestinian Meteorological Department.

The conditions bring a whole new set of challenges to displacement. Ghafry said she and her family struggle to conserve the meager water they receive from the free distribution points. Each individual is allocated only two to three liters. The WFP says that 15 liters of water per day are the bare minimum that people need to survive.

Israa now bathes only once every two weeks in a private bath within a garage whose owners dedicate it for women to use. Personal hygiene essentials have become a luxury, either due to their scarcity in the aid received through UNRWA or due to their rising prices. 

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Majdy Dahlan: From hosting displaced persons to becoming one

During the initial two months of the war, Majdy Dahlan’s home in Khan Younis served as a refuge for his relatives who were displaced from northern Gaza. But Dahlan was forced to evacuate to Mawasi after two neighboring houses were shelled, killing some of his neighbors.

Accompanied by his family, Dahlan joined a group of other families on their displacement journey, traveling on a cart that transported them to Mawasi.

Mawasi had been transformed into a camp on the coast, housing tens of thousands of displaced individuals from across the strip, some enduring days in the open.

Dahlan resorted to using wooden pallets that were used to carry aid supplies brought in by trucks through the Rafah crossing for heating and cooking, he said.