KHAN YUNIS: When Israel warned civilians to leave northern Gaza, Rahma Saqallah and her family fled south. But after Israeli bombs killed her husband and three of her children, she decided to head back home.

“Wherever we go, we will die,” Saqallah said, as she prepared to leave the city of Khan Yunis, in the south of the territory to return to Gaza City with her surviving child.

She is among roughly 600,000 Palestinians who went south in response to Israel’s warning to evacuate “for your own safety”.

But repeated deadly strikes on the south of the territory in recent days have prompted 30,000 of the displaced to head back home, according to UN figures.

Many were in any case struggling to find shelter in Khan Yunis, an already densely populated city which has been swamped by the influx of families fleeing the north.

On Wednesday, before leaving, Saqallah said: “My husband and my three sons, Daoud, Moham­mad and Majed, became martyrs on Tuesday at dawn.”

`Die in our own homes’

Her husband was 47, her son Majed 9, and Daoud 18, while Mohammad was due to “celebrate his 15th birthday today (Wednes­day)”, she said.

The strike “destroyed the second and third floors” of the apartment building in which multiple families, around 60 people, were sheltering, she said.

It killed 11 members of her extended family and 26 people from other families.

“From my family, only me and my daughter Raghad (17) are still alive. We are alive but I cannot say that we are well,” she said.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2023