(19 Jan 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Gaza City, Gaza Strip – 18 January 2025
1. Various of the al-Shadi’i family, who were displaced from Beit Lahiya, packing their belongings ahead of their return to their home in northern Gaza
2. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ma’zoza al-Shadi’i, displaced Palestinian from Beit Lahiya:
”We want to sit on the ground between the graves there. We want to set up a tent and settle down. I swear I am bored. My life has been completely destroyed and has become a disaster."
3. Various of women packing their belongings
4. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ismail al-Shafi’i, displaced Palestinian from Beit Lahiya:
”My son was martyred, he had nothing to do with all of this, and my second son was arrested by the Jews. My third son was injured and his hand and leg were cut off, and my fourth son is an old man, approaching sixty, he is living in the Palestine playground. We’re dispersed, some of us here, and some there. We hope to God that things will be facilitated, and that those in the south can go back like us."
5. Various of the al-Shafi’i family packing their belongings
6. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Ismail al-Shafi’i, displaced Palestinian from Beit Lahiya:
"We will live on the ruins of the house. Where will we live? On our destroyed house, on the rubble, we will set up the tent and live inside it. We will not return and find a palace. There is no palace. In the north there is nothing. There are no buildings or houses for people to live in."
7. Various of Ismail al-Shafi’i standing outside his tent
8. Various of Ma’zoza sitting outside her tent
9. Various of displaced people near tents
10. Various of girls sitting near their belongings outside their tent
11. Various of children carrying their belongings in cart
12. Various of displaced people near tents
STORYLINE:
Palestinians displaced from their homes in the Gaza Strip began packing their tents to return home the day before the ceasefire was expected to begin between Israel and Hamas.
More than 90% of Palestinians have been displaced during the 15-month war in Gaza, many of them multiple times, forced to live in tent encampments in squalid conditions and bitter cold.
Some were expecting to re-erect their tent on the ruins of their old houses.
“We will not return and find a palace, there is no palace, in the north there is nothing, there are no buildings or houses for people to live in,” said displaced Palestinian Ismail Aa-Shafi’i.
Al-Shafi’i was displaced from his home in Beit Lahiya and has been living in Gaza City. He lost one son during the war and has another son in Israeli detention.
The sixty members of Al-Shafi’i’s family were displaced across Gaza. Some, like him, stayed in the north. Others went to the south, leaving without bringing any possessions.
Al-Shafi’i hasn’t seen his grandchildren who were displaced to the south since the war began. Now, his family is putting their few belongings into bags, unsure of what the future holds.
Ma’zoza Al Shadi’i, who was also displaced from Beit Lahiya, said her family would set up their tent “between the graves” that litter northern Gaza.
“My life has been completely destroyed and has become a disaster,” she said, sitting outside her tent.
More than 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war in Gaza, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which doesn’t distinguish between civilians and combatants.
The war was sparked by Hamas’ October 2023 attack on southern Israel, where the militant group killed 1,200 people and took 250 hostages in Gaza.
AP video produced by Wafaa Shurafa
Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AP_Archive
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/APArchives
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/APNews/
You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/youtube/085753ddfe3047b19af84d3dddd3e790
Author: AP Archive
Go to Source
News post in January 24, 2025, 3:04 am.
Visit Our Sponsor’s:
News Post In – News
