20-year-old Ali Khaled was born and brought up in the Al-Daraj neighbourhood of northwest Gaza City. Earlier this week, he and his family took down their tent, packed their clothes, and left the Nuseirat area of southern Gaza, where they had been displaced to several weeks previously, to return home:

 Khaled says:

Home means everything, and the neighbourhood I live in means a lot to me, and I love it. On my way home, I was thinking and hoping that it would be peaceful, and that this occupation of my country will end forever and we will live as other people live. I found my home and, although it only had minor damage, there was great destruction nearby. There were many bombed houses and also schools in the same neighbourhood, and my university is gone.

Gaza has endured one war after another

 Khaled, like other Palestinians his age, has lived through six wars already, but they have been nothing like this one:

This war is the most violent and powerful I have seen, and it has affected my life completely, in all aspects.

 The genocide began just two weeks after he began studying a website design and development course at university. He remembers October 7, 2023 well:

On the Saturday morning, my twin sister and I woke up early to go to the university, but we heard explosions and rockets, so we didn’t leave the house. We turned on the news and learned what had happened. The university closed on the first day of the war — my course later continued online, and I went to work in the mall, where I had been doing some work before, this time under emergency conditions. They needed me because of the crowds of people rushing to buy food. I worked there for the first couple of months of the war, then had to stop because of the worsening situation in Gaza, including displacement.

Khaled has been forcibly displaced several times during the past two years. The first time, he says, was in December 2023 when the Israeli occupation’s tanks rolled into the Al- Daraj neighbourhood where he lived, storming the Yarmouk Stadium– Palestine’s oldest stadium, which was later turned into a detention camp. Khaled lived less than five minutes’ walk from here. According to Khaled:

The army arrested many men, and let the women and children leave to the Southern Gaza Strip. I remember, moments before we fled, the army threw smoke bombs in the street, and a young man who I knew, he was our neighbour, was martyred because of the bomb. Another bomb fell on Bandar Al-Daraj Hospital, near to where we lived. I will never forget that, as at the time Al Shifa Hospital was out of service, so they had been bringing the injured and martyrs to Bandar Al-Daraj instead. There was a terrible smell of blood, and the sight of martyrs lying on the ground.

After this bombing Khaled and his family were displaced to the Al-Sabra  neighbourhood in the South of Gaza City, but he says they did not find safety there either:

It was a very difficult first night there, in my uncle’s house, where we stayed for about 25 days. The tanks were also close to the neighbourhood and shrapnel was falling. There were many martyrs. Now, the house is completely destroyed by robots.

When the army withdrew from the Al- Daraj area, Khaled and his family returned to the house they shared with his grandfather, which they had previously fled from. He says they stayed inside most of the time for fear of being shot. He said:

During the war, more than 30 displaced people were sleeping in the two rooms of my grandfather’s house. Our rooms upstairs were also full of people, including my married older sister and her children, as her home was bombed and destroyed at the beginning of the war. My uncles slept on the roof of the house, as there was no room. The house is still crowded today, but not like it was during the war.

Although Gaza City has been relentlessly pounded for the past two years by the Israeli war machine and now looks unrecognisable from how it was, Khaled feels relieved he has managed to return to Gaza City before the arrival of winter, and is happy to be back in Gaza City, back in his home, seeing his sister and her children, who remained in the Al-Daraj area, while Khaled was forcibly displaced to the south of the Strip. But he worries for the people who have been left with absolutely nothing:

We are lucky that our house had only minor damage, but many people do not even have a shelter, or extra clothes, even though winter is approaching.

Musab bin Omair Mosque in the west of Gaza City 2023:

Musab bin Omair Mosque in the west of Gaza City 2025:

Here’s to those not with us anymore

Khaled is now thinking of the relatives and friends who have been killed by the Israeli occupation during this genocide. His uncle died because the army prevented him from receiving his cancer treatment, and his beloved grandfather was blown apart when a bomb went off not long after he had returned from his brothers funeral:

 When he left the funeral, he went to a house in the Al- Sabra neighbourhood, where things were unstable. He called my mother, then the call ended unexpectedly. An hour later, news came that he was matryred. Three artillery shells bombed the street.

Life is extremely difficult in Gaza right now. People are now in a state of shock, everyone is tired and sad, and some people have been left with absolutely nothing, not even any family members. Although prices have started to come down in Gaza, no one has any money. Khaled is trying to find work, to provide for his family but not found anything. He says:

My work no longer exists. The shop was destroyed, and many of the other workers and shop owners for whom I used have been martyred.

“At the moment, my hopes for the future are just to live in peace,” he says.

Featured image and additional images and video via Ali Khaled

By Charlie Jaay

This post was originally published on Canary.