The lives of thousands of Palestinian families in the Gaza Strip have turned into hell as the intense and unprecedented Israeli raids on the Strip continue for the twentieth day in a row.

As the horrific days of bombing continued, the families that were separated became not aware of each other, and many were saddened by the killing of their peers and parents, while others awaited the fate of their missing children.

When Shadi Al-Souq fled with his large family from the northern Gaza Strip in search of a safe haven, he did not think that his family’s fate would be between the pain of loss and an unknown fate.

Al-Souq (37 years old), a brother of eight siblings, half of whom were married and had children under the age of ten, who lived in a five-story building in the overcrowded Jabalia camp, said, “Last week we left our building as the bombing intensified, and I, my three children, and two of my brothers arrived here.” But the rest of the family stayed with friends of ours in Gaza and the central Strip.”

The man added from inside a school that was turned into a shelter center in Khan Yunis, “Since the day we were displaced (we fled), contact with his parents, my three little brothers, has been cut off.”

He points out that one of his brothers was killed along with his wife and five children as a result of a bombing that targeted the home of one of the families in which they took refuge in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.

The Al-Souq family was displaced along with thousands of Palestinian families to the south of the Gaza Strip, as a result of air strikes and continuous Israeli warnings to the civilian population in preparation for a ground attack aimed at undermining the military capabilities of Hamas and ending its rule, according to what Israel says.

The latest statistics from the Hamas government media office in Gaza indicate that the Israeli army committed 688 “massacres” against families in the Strip, leaving 4,807 dead, while hundreds of dead are still under the rubble.

While the children of the market are playing with their peers inside the classrooms in the school courtyards, and the women are chatting while sitting on the students’ chairs, the market is sending short messages via mobile phone in the hope of receiving a response from his parents or other siblings.

The man, puffing on a cigarette, explained to Xinhua News Agency, "Every day I send messages but I do not receive a response... Family friends informed me that my father and younger siblings are still alive, but none of them have spoken to me for a week."

Mobile phones are the primary means of communication in Gaza in light of the interruption of Internet services in large areas of the Strip as a result of targeting the network infrastructure and the ongoing power outages.

The Palestinian Telecommunications Group said in a press statement that 40% of cellular phone subscribers in Gaza were affected after half of the cellular network towers and sites were disrupted.

In Gaza City, Fayez Al-Bahtini (77 years old) and his wife insist on not leaving his home despite the flight of a number of his children and their families and the destruction that befell Al-Nasr neighborhood, which is the most prestigious neighborhood in the city and was inhabited by more than 600,000 people before the fighting broke out on the seventh of this October.

The man sent a short message to his son Muhammad, who lives in the middle of the Strip, reassuring him of his situation and asking him to return home again.

But Al-Bahtini Jr. is still committed to staying where he lives now, as he fears for the fate of his four children, the eldest of whom is only nine years old, according to what he says.

The population of the Gaza Strip, which has a population of 2.3 million, has never witnessed such a tragic situation, which came after an unprecedented attack carried out by hundreds of Hamas militants, which resulted in the killing of at least 1,400 Israelis in southern Israel.

The number of displaced people in the Gaza Strip reached about one million six hundred thousand Palestinians, more than a third of whom reside in schools that have been turned into shelter centers under the supervision of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).
A large number of displaced people regret the homes, shops, olive and citrus fields waiting to be harvested, agricultural lands, and livestock from which they have been living, in the midst of a non-existent economic reality for more than a decade and a half.
Among them is Ibrahim Naim (57 years old), who was displaced from the town of Beit Lahia, which is subjected to unprecedented Israeli air strikes.
Naeem told Xinhua from inside a shelter in Rafah, “We in Beit Lahia depend on agriculture and raising poultry. We have no other resources,” expressing his sadness at leaving the poultry farm with two thousand chickens inside it without food, and the value of its establishment amounted to 20 thousand dollars. .
“In one moment, we lost our home, our livelihood, and everything.”
But what worries Naeem most is the fate of his cousins who insisted on staying in the village despite the bombing. They were quoted as saying, "Some of them were saying, 'We will die here and not leave our home and our land.'"
In the courtyard of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, Ahmed Al-Masry, displaced from the town of Beit Hanoun, adjacent to the border with Israel, laments the money he spent on building his new house, to which he planned to move his fiancée to complete the marriage ceremony.
Al-Masry (27 years old) says, "The house was destroyed and my wife's family was killed. Only her (his fiancée) and her younger brother remained, as they are receiving care inside here."
The young man, currently residing in the hospital courtyard with thousands of displaced people, tries in vain to control himself, holding his tears behind a smile when he remembers how he lost everything in one moment.
He adds, "I try to live with people and forget, but my wound is great and does not heal."
As Israeli aircraft continue to launch raids on populated homes, bakeries, and cafes in the southern Gaza Strip, the tragedy of loss and unknown fate does not stop.
Photojournalist Firas Al-Shaer escaped death, but all his family members were killed as a result of an Israeli raid that targeted their home in the Rafah refugee camp in the southern Gaza Strip.
The poet Lamazia recounts the last moments before the three-story house was bombed, saying, “Everyone was in their bed downstairs, while I was sleeping upstairs at the moment of the bombing.” He adds that the pain of loss is a terrible thing, and soon I will join them.