GAZA: After weeks of Israeli bombardment that left them with nowhere to go, hundreds of Palestinians found themselves in a former Gaza prison built to hold murderers and thieves.
Yasmin Al-Dardasi said she and her family were passing injured people they could not help as they evacuated from the southern Khan Younis area towards the Central Correctional Institution.
They spent the day under a tree before moving to the former prison, where they now live in a prayer room. It provides protection from the scorching sun, but not much else.
Al-Dardasi's husband has a damaged kidney and only one lung, but no mattress or blanket.
“We didn't settle here either,” said Al-Dardasi, who, like many Palestinians, fears being evicted again.
Israel said it was doing everything it could to protect the civilian population.
Palestinians, many of whom have been displaced several times, say there is nowhere left without Israeli bombardment that has reduced much of Gaza to rubble.
An Israeli airstrike killed at least 90 Palestinians in a special humanitarian zone in the al-Mawasi area on July 13, the territory's health ministry said, in an attack that Israel said targeted the elusive Hamas military chief, Mohammed Deif.
Gaza's Health Ministry said on Thursday that 14 people were killed in Israeli military strikes on areas in eastern Khan Younis.
In one of the most densely populated places in the world, where poverty and unemployment have long been widespread, entire neighborhoods have been leveled.
According to the UN, nine out of ten people in Gaza are now internally displaced.
According to her, Israeli soldiers told Saria Abu Mustafa and her family that they had to flee for safety because tanks were on their way. The family did not have time to change clothes and left in prayer clothes.
After sleeping outside on the sandy ground, they also found shelter in the prison, among piles of rubble and holes in the buildings from the fighting that took place there. The prisoners were released long before the Israeli attack.
“We didn't take anything with us. We came here on foot, we had children with us,” she said, adding that many of the women had five or six children and that it was difficult to find water.
She held a niece born during the conflict that killed her father and brothers.
More than 39,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli air and ground attacks since October 7, according to Palestinian health officials.
Hana Al-Sayed Abu Mustafa arrived at the prison after being moved six times.
If Egyptian, American and Qatari mediators fail to secure a ceasefire, which they have long said is close, she and other Palestinians could be on the move again.
“Where should we go? All the places we go are dangerous,” she said.
