A 37-year-old father of three from a-Nazleh neighborhood in Jabalya, northern Gaza, Ahmad related how his family lost their home and scattered, and his daughter was born weighing 1 kilo due to malnutrition:
My wife and I lived with our two sons, Muhammad, 7, and Nabil, 5, in a-Nazleh neighborhood in Jabalya, in a six-story building that belonged to my family. My parents, brothers, uncles and their children lived in the same building – 13 families in total. Before the war, I worked at Fusion Internet Services and also had a fish restaurant on Gaza’s beach. At the beginning of the war, the Israeli military bombed the restaurant and completely destroyed it. Since then, I’ve been unemployed.
The war began with heavy bombings around us. Our area was immediately designated a “red zone.” My mother and siblings evacuated to the southern Gaza Strip. I stayed with my wife, our children, my father, and my brother Yusri in the building. Yusri’s wife and children joined the rest of the family in the south. We didn’t want to be displaced and lived through the bombings and hunger. I ground up bird food to feed my family. We boiled water and added spices to make it taste like soup. A single kilo of flour cost me 150 shekels.
I went several times to a-Nabulsi roundabout to get flour, and last year I witnessed the massacre that took place there. Dozens of people were killed and injured. My brother Yusri was with me, and I lost him for three hours. I searched for him among the bodies and torn limbs. That tragic day, I lost many friends and neighbors. My brother-in-law, Mu‘taz Musa, 20, was also killed there.
During that time, my mother, siblings and their families were displaced again and again between Rafah, Khan Yunis and a-Zawaydah in the central Strip. They lived in tents in unbearable conditions. In January 2025, when a ceasefire was declared, they came back home. It was the happiest day of my life, to know we survived and reunite in our house. But in March, the war resumed, this time even more intensely, and we found ourselves again hungry and terrified.
On 25 August 2025, my brother Yasser went with his family to a-Zawaydah. He took some supplies with him and told me, “I’m sure I’ll never come home again.” I sent my wife, who was nine months pregnant, and our two children to her family’s house in a-Nasser neighborhood. My parents moved to al-Jalaa Street, and Yusri sent his wife and children to relatives in a-Shati Refugee Camp. Yusri and I were the only ones who stayed in our building.
Two days later, when the situation became unbearable, Yusri also left to join his family in a-Shati Refugee Camp, and I stayed behind alone. Those were extremely hard days, especially when the military put a robot near a school and blew up the entire compound. The sounds of the explosions were horrifying. On 5 September 2025, the upper floors of our building were bombed while I was on the ground floor. I decided to leave the house. I thought of my children, my wife and my friends. I knew they were worried about me and would grieve if I died.
Before I left, I filmed one of my neighbors trying to get his mother’s body out. I had heard him shouting that both his parents were killed when their house was bombed. Then I saw someone helping him carry his mother’s body away.
I left under airstrikes and shelling and went to stay with the relatives in a-Shati Refugee Camp. I’m crying as I tell you this. Two days after I left, on 7 September 2025, our building was bombed and reduced to rubble. We became homeless in an instant. Our situation is dire, beyond imagination. We’ve lost everything: our homes, our livelihoods and our hope. We live in constant fear.
Three days ago, my wife gave birth to our youngest, Haya, who was born weighing only one kilo because of the malnutrition my wife suffered. I visit her and the children at my inlaws’ home. We meet at the doorway, and I feel like we’ve become strangers to each other. We can no longer live together as a family.
My family is scattered. Everyone is in a different place. We don’t see each other, don’t get together like we used to at my parents’ home. I’m haunted by thoughts of the house we lost. We can’t afford to move south – it’s overcrowded there, and displacement is too expensive. Renting a 200-square-meter plot of land costs 3,000 shekels (~900 USD) a month. A tent costs another 3,000. Transporting the family and our belongings costs 2,500 more. This is money I simply don’t have.
My life is ruined. I’d rather die here than move south. Even if we could afford it, my wife couldn’t survive in a tent with no basic conditions and a newborn baby who is underweight. When we left home, we took nothing, only clothes. I knew it was the last time. I said goodbye to our house and our neighborhood.
Being displaced feels like my soul has left my body. A home isn’t just walls and furniture. It’s childhood memories, family gatherings, and moments with loved ones. Home is everything. The war is cruel, but losing our home is far worse.
For me, it’s harder than hunger and deprivation. It’s the greatest loss of all. We are now displaced, without hope, under bombardment and destruction. There is no safe place or humanitarian zone in the Gaza Strip. Every place is attacked. Death is everywhere.
We, the residents of Gaza, are being massacred, annihilated and displaced.
* Testimony given to B’Tselem field researcher Olfat al-Kurd on 11 September 2025