A trained nurse in his early twenties from Gaza City has described how he and his family burned a copy of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four to bake bread, as he detailed a month of displacement and survival in a diary kept for the Guardian. Karim, who has now been displaced 13 times and survived an Israeli strike in Rafah, says he has lost all hope after two years of war.
Writing from Deir al-Balah, where he has rented a makeshift garage for 1,500 shekels a month, Karim described travelling with a friend in a vehicle altered to carry extra people, holding on "like lifeboats" for fear of falling into the open road. Near al-Nabulsi Square he saw what he called a "ribbon of fire" as fighter jets carved lines of explosions above Gaza City, with ash clouds rising and everything below erased.
He said the landlord also offered a tiny apartment for 2,500 shekels, which he described as exorbitant, reflecting how "in wars and crises people become more aggressive, more selfish". Karim spent days cleaning and arranging the garage, which has almost no roof, to make it livable, while trying not to think about his former home, with its box-spring bed, gaming desk and air conditioner.
His parents initially refused to leave Gaza City, clinging to hope that international mediation would spare the area, but have now joined him. The Israeli military has issued a forced displacement order for all of Gaza City, including the western part, and Karim said many people have "no energy, no money, no will to leave their homes – many would rather die than go out".
Karim recalled that there are 2 million people trapped in less than 20 square kilometres, and that talk of sending them to South Sudan, a country racked by civil war, suggested the world would shrug. He quoted the late Israeli prime minister Golda Meir on forgiveness, and said that sometimes he thinks Israel "should be studied by psychologists". He also reported that a neighbour had told him the Israelis had even bombed Qatar, adding: "They have no limits any more."
