Life has started anew in this foreign city, an hour’s drive from home, which has now been bombed to pieces. The population in Khan Younis has more than doubled since Israel ordered the evacuation from northern Gaza two weeks ago. Those who do not flee are caught in the crossfire between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hamas’s forces. Aid worker Hammash brought his extended family, his wife Manal Aljori and their children Eliaa (5) and Ahmed (2). Father of two Yousef Hammash believes he would not be alive today if he did not have to take care of his two children. Photo: Yousef Hammash / X But they are not safe in Khan Younis either. For 34 hours this weekend, large parts of the people in Gaza had no way of reaching the outside world, or each other. Israel had entered the country with ground forces, and the telephone signal and the internet disappeared. – We live in hell. It’s like a nightmare, but we woke up to this. It’s not the first time, but it’s different, he tells news. Here you can jump to the audio clip from Hammash’s diary: Hammash has previously worked as a freelance journalist for the BBC and Channel 4, but is today responsible for the communication and influence work from Gaza for the Norwegian Refugee Council. He and his family have fled from Beit Lahia, which lies in the very north of Gaza near the border with Israel. Both times the violence has escalated since they moved in, in 2018 and 2021, they have left the house. They also did that on Saturday 7 October. Hammash and his extended family have fled from Beit Lahia in the north to Khan Younis in the south. Hamas had attacked Israel with several thousand rockets. Then they took over entire villages and kibbutzim inside the country. Since then, the Gaza Strip has been exposed to intense bombing from the Israeli side. There is no place in here that can be considered safe anymore, according to the UN. For a week they lived with their parents and grandparents nearby, and every day they woke up to the news that someone they loved had been killed, Hammash told news. Then they fled south when the evacuation order came, on 13 October. Three days later, Hammash recorded the first of the audio clips: Play audio I live with one of my relatives. The neighbors go out every morning to stand in line in front of the bakery. To get water, too. They have a plan to distribute water in the neighbourhood. I think it will be a couple of hours for each neighbourhood. We have to wait a couple of days, then we get it in a couple of hours. The nephew on his wife Aljori’s side of the family has recently died in a rocket attack. Because she is grieving, Hammash has had a lot of responsibility for Eliaa and Ahmed lately. – Do you and your children have conversations about what is happening right now? – Eliaa now understands that it is a war, and this is bombing. It comes from airplanes. With Ahmed, we try to convince him that there are fireworks. That there is a lightning strike, or that it is raining outside. – He is two and does not understand what is happening, but he is also terrified. Daughter Eliaa has now grown too big for them to explain away the rockets, says Hammash. They are still trying with the youngest. Photo: MOHAMMED ZAANOUN / NRC When Hammash has to go out into the streets to fetch bread, water or medicine, the children cannot join. But they ask every time, and he always promises that it won’t be that long. – If I didn’t have my children behind me, I would have given up on the first day I moved south. – I had stayed on the sofa and waited for the house to be bombed rather than move out into the chaos. I’ve been through things lately that I never thought I would. Play sound So we’ve lived another day as if we’re in hell. Today, early in the morning, I had to carry out my daily mission of finding bread and water. And while I was at the shop they carried out four air raids. A minute passed between each rocket, so we were hundreds of people on the street who panicked and ran. Whenever we heard the rockets coming, we started running, but we didn’t know where to go. When the conflict in Gaza last escalated in May 2021, Hammash made a report together with his colleagues for the Norwegian Refugee Council. There he tells about being a father in a conflict “that never ends”, about his daughter Eliaa who had so many questions, about his son Ahmed who never got to sleep. After he became a father, he said, he felt fear for the first time. Hammash himself is from the refugee camp in Jabalia. – Gaza is more than a home. A part of us lives here. Photo: MOHAMMED ZAANOUN / NRC Today he finds it painful to think back on this interview, and how much better off his family was then. – I blame myself for having felt that panic and fear, he says to news. – I never thought I would have as much power around me as I have today. For several years, he has thought that Gaza is no place for children. When there was a full-scale war between Israel and Hamas, his wife said they had to get them out at once. – If I survive this war, I will also have that on my CV. I don’t need to write “can work under pressure”, “can play in a team”. No, I survived. I can do anything else, says Hammash to news. Photo: Mohammed Zaanoun / NRC – I feel indebted to my children. It was I who chose to have children in Gaza. He himself cannot travel from there, he believes. But the children have to go out. – When it comes to the children, it hurts more. I can’t tolerate my son crying, even once. – Imagine if one day I see that he is dead? I don’t think I’ll be able to control my own mind. I’m going to lose my mind. Play audio Yesterday my two-year-old son Ahmad had a fever. And besides, we couldn’t find a doctor, and we couldn’t get to the hospital. In any case, the hospital does not have the capacity to receive anyone. So we had to use our personal experience to bring down his fever with the medicine we had available. news manages to reach Hammash again on Monday morning. He says that everyone in his immediate family is still alive, but that a cousin who lived nearby has been admitted to hospital. – We try to keep up with what is happening. My cousin is getting better, he wrote in a text message. – But today they start the ground invasion, and the situation all around us becomes even more insane. ATTENTION: The video contains sudden, loud sounds. In a small concrete house with barely enough room for 24, the adults take turns sleeping in the morning. Everyone in Gaza fears the night, which is filled with bombs they cannot see, says Hammash. – After sunset, no one moves. It is completely unsafe, and incredibly frightening to be out on the streets. – We have a fear deep inside us, and I think we will need several years to get over it. All we can do is pray that we will not be the next target. Play audio The signal returned today after two days of isolation. We couldn’t know what was happening around us, we were isolated from the rest of the world and also isolated from each other. We didn’t know how things were going with our relatives, the ones we are happy with. All we knew was the people right in front of us. As more people flee from the north to the south, there is less shopping at the shop. It is best to go without a plan, and take with you what you can afford. The queue for the bakery has also become longer. Recently he stood for five hours for half a bucket of bread for the whole family. By the time he was finally able to return home, darkness had descended. A school in Khan Younis has become a home for those who have no acquaintances to flee to. Hammash says more people are coming to the city every day. Photo: AHMED ZAKOT / Reuters He did not rush home, as he otherwise would have done. He walked slowly and smoked cigarette after cigarette, even though he had actually quit. The orange glow was definitely visible from the drones roaming the streets of Gaza. They filled the air with a constant, mechanical hum. Hammash knew that someone was watching, he says. But right then it didn’t matter. Play audio Yesterday my sisters and my wife cried and prayed that the night would not come. We are much safer at night, and everything is more intense. It’s the night we fear now.
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A diary from Gaza – Urix
