‘I've not heard from my trapped family in days – Gaza has been turned into hell’

13 October 2023 , 14:25

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The view from the car of some of Jehan's loved ones as they fled their homes after Israel's warnings to over one million people

One woman, born in Gaza and living in Britain, has told the heartbreaking story of how she hasn’t heard from family members back home in days, as she’s told of the harrowing reality of life under Israel’s siege.

Jehan moved to the UK in 2013, but was born and raised in Gaza, where her parents, her sister, and other family members, friends and loved ones still live. But their lives were turned upside down following Saturday's bloody attack by Hamas on Israel, which led to the country placing Gaza under siege, and launching a swathe of deadly rocket attacks.

Since then, the mum-of-two has been in contact with her loved ones each day as bloody conflict has once again ignited across that part of the Middle East. But over the last few days, she has lost contact with her aunt and grandmother, who were forced to move around repeatedly after Israeli airstrikes on residential areas around them.

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Earlier today, Israel told the over one million people living in northern Gaza to move to the south of the country (AFP via Getty Images)

In a desperate attempt to stay safe, they even spent the night at the Al Shifa hospital, before it became too overcrowded and they moved on. However, under Israel’s brutal siege of Gaza, electricity, fuel, water and food has been cut off, leaving her loved ones living through a "hell" she compared to a "prison" and a "death camp".

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Her family have no running water, food, or power, and were totally reliant on mobile batteries to stay in touch with her so she knew they were still alive and fine. Then, earlier today, Israel demanded that the one plus million people in north Gaza move southwards - in one of the world's most densely populated areas, it isn't clear where Israel expects them to go.

Amidst the shocking developments that Oxfam described as "both utterly inhumane and impossible", Jehan no longer knows for sure where some of her loved ones are, and is forced to wait for them to find safety, and power, to contact her again.

Despite this, Jehan remains hopeful she will hear from them. Speaking to The Mirror, she said: “I have been in contact with my family almost everyday on and off, it depends on when they log on, my aunt and grandmother we’ve lost contact with for a few days, we can’t reach them at all. My cousin hasn’t been able to reach her mum who’s in Gaza too.”

Jehan told The Mirror some Palestinians feared this would be a repeat of the Nakba (AFP via Getty Images)

Jehan, who lives in Devon, last spoke to her parents this morning, but they were reliant on a portable battery unit for power but it also died. They haven’t had electricity for three days like everyone else in the strip. In their last conversation, her parents assured her that they were okay. But they’ve long lost running water, and efforts to buy fuel for a generator were unsuccessful because there’s so little fuel left in Gaza it’s being rationed for life-saving essentials like ambulances.

Israel’s siege has had a number of harrowing effects on the Palestinians in Gaza, she explained. The lack of power and fuel not only threatened hospitals and emergency services, but left the people of Gaza completely in the dark. When it came to news about their own siege, they relied on outsiders to fill them in in the brief windows they could get, otherwise they only knew what was happening in their immediate vicinity - when the missiles fell around them.

The reality of life within Gaza under Israeli siege (Getty Images)

Jehan explained: “People are frantic, they don’t know what to do, my aunt and cousins have had to move four times, jumping from one place to the next … it’s constantly on the move, constantly trying to get somewhere you think you might be safer, even though it’s obvious nowhere is safe.”

For many people within Palestine, today’s harrowing demand from Israel, to leave the north of Gaza, including Gaza City, felt eerily reminiscent of the Nakba - meaning 'catastrophe' in Arabic, which refers to the mass displacement of Palestinians during the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

Whilst some of her friends adhered to Israel’s demand to move, something the country claimed was to allow them to deal with Hamas, others haven’t. Practically, moving 1.1million people within 24 hours in one of the most densely populated countries in the world seems, to many, like an impossible task, as Oxfam warned.

Whilst some people are fleeing south, others have decided to stay put within Gaza (AFP via Getty Images)

That, Jehan said, combined with bombarded roads, a lack of fuel and cars to transport Palestinians, meant “people just don’t know what to do”. She continued: “Three people I know have already told me they’re trying to move to the south, another friend has said they aren’t going to leave their home, they fear they'd leave their home to invading soldiers and it’d be another Nakba. That’s what people are fearing right now, it feels like they’re just wiping out everyone in their path … people are saying we’ll be bombed anywhere we go so what’s the point in running away?”

Pictures emerging from Gaza have shown crowds abandoning their homes and possessions and moving south, often on foot. Further photos shared with the Mirror showed backed-up roads as so many tried to flee at once. Jehan described some roads as "jam-packed" and said others were rendered useless by Israel's airstrikes.

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Thousands of people have already died so far (Getty Images)

The sense of hopelessness was pervasive amongst a people who have been under occupation for years now. Jehan pointed out that teenagers born from 2006 onwards will only have known violence, occupation and chaos within Gaza. Jehan’s sister was due to leave Gaza in two days time, to fly to Italy for work - a trip that is now impossible. Since leaving herself in 2013, Jehan said she hadn’t been back to her home. Nor taken her children to see where their family came from, meaning some of her loved ones have never met her two children.

Fire and smoke rise above buildings in Gaza City during an Israeli air strike, earlier today (AFP via Getty Images)

She feared for the future too, and what would happen to her people if Israel's siege continued without letting much-needed humanitarian aid in. Jehan said: “How many times have Israel bombed Gaza and launched military campaigns … I saw death with my own eyes, I smelled it, I survived but many people didn’t. If you ask the average Palestinian what they want, they’ll say they just want their freedom, they want their human dignity like everyone else.

"Every time this happens lots of Palestinians are killed, lots of children die, parents bury their kids and there’s human suffering beyond comprehension … what I’m watching now, Gaza is being completely flattened, Palestinians there feel like they’re being wiped out, the only thing they’ve ever wanted is freedom, and they’re in a cage … what I’m seeing is beyond words."

Kieren Williams