Gaza City on the Move — and the People Who Refuse to Be Moved
The morning felt like any other across much of Gaza City — the air heavy with dust, the distant thud of shells like a monstrous, tragic heartbeat — until new leaflets fluttered down from the sky with instructions: leave. For 48 hours, Israel opened a corridor on Salahudin Road, urging civilians to head south. But in a place where every street is a scar and every roof a memory, “leave” is not a simple command. It is a wrenching question about return, survival and identity.
Local health authorities say at least 63 people were killed in the latest waves of strikes and gunfire, most of them in Gaza City. Those numbers push the wider death toll in the territory to more than 65,000 since October 2023 — a figure that officials and rescue workers warn is almost certainly an undercount, as bodies remain trapped beneath collapsed buildings and rubble-strewn neighborhoods.
Walking away — or staying put
“If leaving means you’ll never come back, why go?” asked Ahmed, a schoolteacher in Sabra, whose voice trembled through a short phone call. “I teach the children here. This is my home. If they erase it, I want to be here when that happens.” His words landed with the blunt force of truth: displacement is not just a physical move but the severing of histories, livelihoods, and hope.
Nearly 190,000 people have reportedly headed south from Gaza City, while an additional 350,000 are said to have moved to central and western areas. Yet hundreds of thousands remain reluctant to flee. Some fear the perilous route itself — attacks along the way, not enough food, the crushing reality of overcrowded southern camps. Others are paralyzed by the dread of permanent exile.
- At least 63 killed in the most recent strikes across Gaza, according to local health officials.
- The broader death toll in Gaza has been reported at over 65,000 since October 2023.
- Some 190,000 people were reported to have moved south from Gaza City; 350,000 relocated within the city’s central and western zones.
Hospitals, children and the calculus of danger
Hospitals — sanctuaries that should be inviolable — have themselves become frontlines. Authorities reported a drone strike on a floor of the Rantissi Children’s Hospital, a facility that treats cancer, kidney failure and other life-threatening pediatric conditions. There were no casualties in that particular strike, but some 40 families fled, dragging oxygen machines, suitcases and the fragile bodies of their children into alleyways and the uncertain sun.
“These are not numbers; they are small people with big names,” said Fikr Shalltoot, Gaza director of the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians. “When a specialist children’s hospital takes a hit, the loss is measured in futures denied.” The image of parents carrying children with IV lines waving like solemn flags will likely remain one of the war’s most searing memories.
Cramped corridors, desperate departures
Scenes on the ground were cinematic in their misery. Families fled on foot, by donkey cart, squeezed into trucks, or simply shouldering their lives. In Nuseirat refugee camp, the ground shook as a high-rise building collapsed under an airstrike, and neighbors ran into the street like people surfacing from a nightmare. Others pushed through rubble-strewn lanes clutching ration packs of stale bread and sacks of donated rice.
For many, the southern “humanitarian zone” is not a haven but a pit of uncertainty. Reports of empty aid warehouses and long queues for food and water keep many rooted in place. Humanitarian organizations warn of a looming hunger crisis: when an entire urban population is packed into a few overcrowded zones, disease, malnutrition and the collapse of basic services are never far behind.
The politics of a battlefield and the diplomatic aftershocks
This latest push comes as Israeli forces press toward Gaza’s western and central districts. Tanks have inched forward from multiple directions, a slow, grinding advance against a maze of streets, tunnels and fighters. An Israeli official told reporters that the priority is to open evacuation routes and move civilians south — language that reads differently from every vantage point.
On the diplomatic front, tensions flared after an Israeli strike in Doha that targeted senior Hamas figures, killing members of the group and reportedly a Qatari security officer. The attack — which took place amid ongoing ceasefire discussions — prompted anger from Qatar, which has been a key mediator. A senior US official traveled to Doha to urge Qatar to remain at the bargaining table, underscoring how fragile, and yet essential, those channels of communication remain.
The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry has said its investigation points to acts that meet the legal threshold of genocide, a charge Israel has categorically rejected. The report has polarized international opinion: some countries, like France and Qatar, have called for an immediate halt to the offensive while urging renewed negotiations; others remain aligned with Israel’s security rationale.
Voices from the rubble
“They told us to leave and gave us a road to follow. But the road is littered with bodies and the fear of disappearing,” said Leila, who packed her elderly father into a battered Nissan and headed for a southern camp. Her voice cracked. “What’s left of us if we lose our home? What will our children call ‘home’?”
Rescue workers — volunteers who have become part of the local fabric — spoke of a grinding, demoralizing rhythm: pull someone from the dust, perform CPR on a neighbor, bury a child, and then go back to looking for more. “We keep our phones charged not to speak to relatives, but because there might be a call about someone trapped,” one volunteer said. “We are all waiting for good news that never comes.”
What does this mean for the world?
When a city like Gaza City — ancient, layered with history and memory — is flattened block by block, it forces uncomfortable questions upon distant listeners: What do we owe civilians in a modern conflict? How do we balance national security with human security? And how many warnings, leaflets, and corridors does a people need before their rights as human beings are respected?
These are not theoretical questions. They are lived realities: parents trying to keep a child’s fever down without medicine, an old man refusing to leave the shelter holding the photo album that is all he has, health workers repurposing every room to care for anyone who walks through the door.
Invitation to reflect
As the world scrolls past snapshots and short clips, consider this: what does accountability look like when cities are emptied and futures erased? How can the international community, NGOs, and diplomats act in ways that protect people on the ground rather than simply score points in a geopolitical ledger? And for those of us who watch from afar — what will we remember when the cameras leave?
For now, Gaza’s streets remain full of those who have not fled and those who, fleeing, carry with them the unbearable weight of what they might never get back. The leaflets may have fallen. The choice to go or stay is far more complicated than a printed message and a timetable. It is the daily arithmetic of loss and hope, compassion and courage, and the stubborn, human need to belong.
