Exhaustion and despair as Gaza faces new waves of forced displacement

As Israel issues wide new forced displacement orders across the Gaza Strip, Palestinians say they are crushed by exhaustion and hopelessness at the prospect of fleeing once again.

Many are packing a few belongings and trudging off in search of new shelters despite there being no safe spaces in the war-torn enclave. Some say they just cannot bear to move.

When ordered out of Jabalia in northern Gaza, Ihab Suliman and his family could only grab some food and blankets before making their way south on March 19. It was their eighth time fleeing over the past 18 months of war.

“There is no longer any taste to life,” said Suliman, a former university professor. “Life and death have become one and the same for us.”

Suliman is among the tens of thousands of Palestinians who have fled temporary shelters since Israel shattered a two-month-old ceasefire on March 18 with renewed bombardment and ground assaults.

Daunted by the notion of starting over, some Palestinians are ignoring the latest displacement orders – even if it means risking their lives.

“After one year and a half of war that has exhausted everyone, children and their parents, too, are just worn out physically and mentally,” said Rosalia Bollen, UNICEF’s communication specialist.

For the past month, Israel has blocked all food, fuel and supplies from entering Gaza, and aid groups say there are no more tents or other shelter supplies to help the newly displaced.

On Tuesday, the World Food Programme shut down all its bakeries in Gaza, on which hundreds of thousands rely for bread, because it had run out of flour.

Israel’s forced displacement orders cover large swaths of the Strip, including many areas of Gaza City and towns in the north, parts of the southern city of Khan Younis, and almost the entire southern city of Rafah and its surroundings.