The men in the wedding hall at the Dheisheh refugee camp in the West Bank spend most of their days and nights glued to their phones, smoking and constantly refreshing their news feeds. They look exhausted, the horrors of the last few days clearly visible on their faces.
These 180 men – they are all men – are refugees from Gaza. They are among the roughly 18,000 residents of the enclave who have Israeli work permits and are allowed to cross the border back and forth. When the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) shut all access to Gaza following Hamas’ deadly attack last Saturday, these men became stuck.
Their wives and children are still in Khan Younis, a town in southern Gaza that is now the epicenter of its own rapidly unfolding refugee crisis, with no way of getting out.
The IDF has been relentlessly pounding Gaza with airstrikes and artillery after Hamas fighters staged a terror attack and launched thousands of rockets that so far have killed at least 1,400 people. The terror group also kidnapped some 150 others on October 7 during the unprecedented rampage.
Israel’s military says its goal is to destroy Hamas and ensure it can never again carry out such an attack. But the civilian toll of the campaign has been immense. The Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza said 2,450 have been killed in the past eight days, which is more than during the entire 2014 war, which lasted 51 days.
Ismail Abd Almagid’s wife and five children – four girls and one boy – are in Gaza while he is staying in the refugee camp. He has videos of all of them on his phone. One shows his young daughter Misk eating a piece of mango. When he plays the clip, tears start streaming down his face.
Tala, his second-oldest daughter, was injured in the 2014 war when the family was staying at his parents’ house. “She loves roller skates, so I told her I’ll bring them when I come back,” he said.
Abd Almagid, 44, told CNN he tries to keep in touch with his wife at all times, but communication has been difficult since Israel cut off Gaza’s access to electricity, food and water.
“My children are telling me to pray for them. The situation is very difficult over there,” he said. “I’d go back (to Gaza) right now … even with everything that’s going on, take me to Gaza, I will go with you right now … my life is not worth it without my family.”
Right now a huge population shift is underway in Gaza, with hundreds of thousands heading south, many heading to the overcrowded streets of Khan Younis.
