TRANSLATED FROM ARABIC BY YASMINE HAJ
I still remember how anxious and stressed I felt at the beginning of the war, when I saw the first tents compound. It had been set up to receive the displaced, heading south from north of the Gaza valley. The compound was hundreds of stacked white tents, set up in an empty land by the Sināa building, an UNRWA vocational education center.
It was still October 2023, the very beginning of the war, followed by initial waves of displacement. Thousands of families hailed into Khan Younis city, as we watched vehicles move families with their luggage, bags of clothes, and a few household items. At the beginning, people thought they would be displaced for just a few weeks, or two months at most; and so they weren’t interested in bringing along many of their belongings. They would only take suitcases of clothes, their IDs, money, jewellery, and some blankets and mattresses.