GAZA: After weeks of Israeli bombardment with nowhere to go, hundreds of Palestinians have ended up in a former prison in Gaza built for murderers and thieves.
Yasmeen Al-Dardasi said she and her family passed injured people they were unable to help as they were evacuated from a neighborhood in the southern city of Khan Younis towards the Central Correctional and Rehabilitation Facility.
They spent the day under a tree before moving to a former prison where they now live in a prayer room. It offers protection from the harsh sun, but not much else.
Al-Dardasi's husband has a damaged kidney and only one lung, but he has no mattress or blanket.
“We're not even settled here,” said Al-Dardasi, who, like many Palestinians, fears being uprooted again.
Israel has declared that it will do everything possible to protect civilians.
Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced several times, say there is nowhere without Israeli bombardment that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.
An Israeli airstrike killed at least 90 Palestinians in a designated humanitarian zone in the Al-Mawasi area on July 13, the country's health ministry said, in an attack Israel said targeted elusive Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif.
Gaza's health ministry said on Thursday that Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Yunis killed 14 people.
Entire neighborhoods have been razed to the ground in one of the most densely populated places in the world, where poverty and unemployment have long been widespread.
According to the UN, nine out of ten people in Gaza are now internally displaced.
Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family that they should flee to safety because tanks were on their way, she said. The family did not have time to change and left in prayer clothes.
After sleeping outside on the sandy ground, they too found refuge in the prison, among the piles of rubble and gaping holes in the buildings from the battles fought there. The prisoners were released long before Israel attacked.
“We didn't take anything with us. We came here on foot, the children came with us,” she said, noting that many of the women have five or six children and that it is difficult to find water.
She was holding her niece who was born during the conflict that killed her father and brothers.
More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in an Israeli air and ground offensive since October 7, Palestinian health officials say.
Hana Al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrived at the prison after being displaced six times.
If Egyptian, American and Qatari mediators fail to secure a truce they have long said is close, she and other Palestinians may be on the move again.
“Where should we go? All the places we go are dangerous,” she said.
