Abu ‘Othman

a 59-year-old married father of four from Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, spoke about being forced to leave his home with his family and move to an UNRWA center in Khan Yunis, in a testimony given  on 23 October 2023: 

On 8 October 2023, my family and I left our home in Beit Hanoun and moved in with another family in Jabalya. We stayed with them for five days and then moved again, after the military announced we had to evacuate the area and move south. 

Since last Friday we’ve been here, at the UNRWA center in Khan Yunis. I sleep in the yard and my wife and daughters sleep in one of the rooms. Some have mattresses and others only blankets laid out on the floor. There are a lot of people out here in the yard, because there isn’t enough space for everyone in the rooms. If the weather changes and it becomes cold and rainy, I don't know where we’ll go. 

A lot of people are sleeping in their cars. 

UNRWA gives out pita bread here twice a day. Every person gets about half a pita a day. Apart from that, twice since we got here we were given canned meat, corn, halva, jam, sardines and cheese, which had to last for several days each time.  

There’s electricity here, as well as tanks of water for filling bottles, but it’s very crowded and very hard with the long lines.

* Testimony  given to B'Tselem Field Researcher Khaled al-‘Azayzeh.