Across Gaza, ordinary Palestinians – men and women, old and young, ill and healthy – have described their fear, despair and confusion after Israel’s return to violence in the past two days.
“Our hopes rose but now we are back to square one,” Osama, a 40-year-old aid worker living in al-Mawasi, a coastal area designated as a “humanitarian zone” early in the conflict, which has since become known for severe overcrowding and poor sanitation.
Massive Israeli airstrikes shattered the two-month ceasefire on Tuesday, killing more than 400. A further 20 Palestinians died in further attacks on Wednesday, local health officials said.
In a statement on Wednesday, Israel’s defence minister warned the military was preparing to intensify its new offensive.
Israel Katz said: “Residents of Gaza, this is the last warning. Take the advice of the president of the United States. Return the hostages and remove Hamas, and other options will open up for you – including the possibility of leaving for other places in the world for those who want to.”
It was not immediately clear which statement Katz was referring to.
In al-Mawasi, tented encampments that had stretched along the entire shoreline emptied when the ceasefire was agreed. Almost half a million people headed back to the north of Gaza to try to rebuild their ruined homes. Many are now returning, pitching their tents once again on the dunes.
“The worst thing is not the deprivation or the uncertainty. It is that the hopes we had with the ceasefire are gone. We thought our pains were over but it has just started again,” said Osama.
Evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military on Tuesday, along with renewed airstrikes and tank shelling, are forcing thousands of Palestinians to return to makeshift camps where they sheltered for months last year.
Leaflets dropped on Beit Hanoun, a once thriving town in northern Gaza, told residents that “staying in the shelters or the current tent puts your lives and that of your family members in danger” and advised them to “evacuate immediately”.
There were similar scenes in towns close to Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, as well as Shuja’iya in the centre. The new orders mean more than 160,000 people have been now told to leave their homes.
Earlier in the war, Israel used a complicated system of numbered zones to tell Palestinians where they would be safer. This system appears to have been abandoned.
Many in Gaza say they are facing a daily challenge of surviving in the shattered concrete and twisted metal ruins that were once their homes, without running water, electricity or reliable communications.
Staff at the Red Cross field hospital in Rafah said they had received a high number of patients.
“Now, we can feel the panic in the air, the sound of ambulance sirens is a constant, and we can see the pain and devastation in the faces of those we are helping. People are scared and are again forced to think only of surviving the next hours,” said Fred Oola, a senior medical officer at the hospital.
Israel re-imposed a tight blockade on Gaza 17 days ago, hours after the first official phase of the ceasefire ended. Prices of basic essentials immediately soared amid panic-buying, then calmed. Now they are spiking again, with a kilo of potatoes now costing the equivalent of $5 (£3.80), four times more than a week ago.
“A lot of people simply can’t afford that, and there’s absolutely no fresh fruit or dairy however much money you have,” said one senior aid official.
Aid distributions have already been cut to preserve stocks, and though 25,000 trucks entered the territory during the two-month pause in hostilities, supplies could start running out soon.
“We have flour for a week or so, but not enough food to cover everyone with rations this month,” one senior aid official in Gaza said. The International Committee of the Red Cross said medical stocks are running low
Almost everyone in Gaza has been displaced several times, often after evacuation orders from the Israeli military.
“We were shocked by the orders. We began gathering our important belongings, some food, and evacuated immediately,” said Khatam al-Kafarna, a 28-year-old nurse who has moved from Beit Hanoun with her family to the coastal al-Shati camp area 6 miles (10km) to the west.
“But the reality is harsh, and the conditions are difficult. There is no aid, no food, no bread, no water, no rest and no privacy,” she said.
Like al-Mawasi, al-Shati camp is now filling again with newly displaced people. Aid agencies have been unable to prepare for the influx, and so lack almost all essentials.
“It is miserable here. We used to live in a large, beautiful, safe and secure house with a big, beautiful garden. I had my own room. Now, we all share the same tent, and we share everything. We wait for death every moment. We barely survived the war by miracle, and we might not survive this if it continues,” al-Kafarna said.
Netanyahu told Israelis in a televised address on Tuesday that he had ordered the new strikes because Hamas had rejected proposals for an extension of the ceasefire, which came into effect in mid-January.
Hamas, which still holds 59 hostages of the approximately 250 seized in its 7 October 2023 cross-border attack, accused Israel of reneging on its earlier agreement to a three-phase truce leading to a permanent end to the war.
About 1,200, mostly civilians, were killed in the 2023 attack. More than 49,000 in Gaza, also mostly civilians, have died during the Israeli offensive in the territory that followed.
Umm Mujahid Abu Jrad, 31 and heavily pregnant with her fourth child, also left Beit Hanoun on Wednesday.
“When I heard on the news that the ceasefire had been violated, I knew that we would be living the nightmare of war again. We have already been displaced eight times but we woke up to evacuation orders and so began to prepare our things to move to another area,” she said.
“When I learned that the war had resumed, I felt a great anger. Why did they do this when everything was going as it should? What do they want from us after they destroyed our homes and made us homeless, turning Gaza into a ghost town? What more do they want?”
Israeli military officials said the strikes on Wednesday were against “terrorist” targets including a “Hamas military site in northern Gaza where preparations were being made to fire projectiles” and “several vessels in the coastal area of the Gaza Strip … intended for use in terrorist operations by Hamas and the Islamic Jihad [armed group]”.
