GAZA: After weeks of Israeli bombardment leaving them nowhere to go, hundreds of Palestinians have ended up in former Gaza prisons built to hold murderers and thieves.
Yasmeen Al-Dardsi said she and her family were unable to help the injured as they moved from a district in the southern city of Khan Younis to its central correction and rehabilitation facility.
They spent a day under a tree before moving to the former prison, where they now live in a prayer room. It provides skin protection from the sun but not much else.
Al-Darassi's husband has a failing kidney and only one lung but no mattress or blanket.
“We are not living here either,” said al-Dardsi, who, like many Palestinians, fears she will be uprooted once again.
Israel says it has gone out of its way to protect civilians.
Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced many times, say nowhere is immune from Israeli bombardment, which has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.
At least 90 Palestinians were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a designated humanitarian area in al-Mawasi area on July 13, the region's health ministry said, in an attack that Israel targeted the elusive Hamas military chief, Mohammed Def.
On Thursday, Gaza's health ministry said 14 people were killed in an attack by Israeli forces in the eastern Khan Younis area.
Entire neighborhoods have been leveled in one of the world's most densely populated areas, where poverty and unemployment have long been rampant.
Nine out of 10 Gazans are now internally displaced, according to the United Nations.
Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family to run for safety because tanks were on the way, she said. The family had no time to change and were left in prayer clothes.
After sleeping outside on the sandy ground, they too found refuge in prisons, piles of rubble from battles fought there and holes thrown into buildings. The prisoners were released before Israel invaded.
“We didn't take anything with us. We came here on foot, we were walking with children,' she said, many women had five or six children and it was difficult to get water.
She holds her niece, who was born during the conflict that killed her father and brothers.
More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli air and ground attacks since October 7, according to Palestinian health officials.
Hana al-Sayed Abu Mustafa ended up in prison after being displaced six times.
If Egyptian, U.S. and Qatari mediators fail to broker a ceasefire that has long been close, he and other Palestinians could once again move on.
“Where should we go? All the places we go to are dangerous,” she said.
