After More Than Three Years of War and Dozens of Forced Relocations, What Gaza's Palestinians Risked Their Lives to Take With Them

The war has lasted more than three years. According to Gaza's Health Ministry, as of September 27, 2026, at least 74,018 Palestinians have been killed and 175,079 injured since the war began in October 2023. In a long photo-feature published on October 8, Al Jazeera described the conflict as "Israel's genocidal war against Gaza," documenting how the Israeli military repeatedly issued forced displacement orders during the war, driving hundreds of thousands of civilians from one neighborhood to the next, and how many families, when ordered to evacuate, could carry away only the belongings they "could not bear to leave behind"—choices that ultimately became the last physical link between their families and their prewar lives.

Omar Abdul Hakim Hamad, 30, decided to linger a little longer under fire when he received the displacement order for Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza on October 30, 2023. According to Al Jazeera's report, what he was trying to rescue was his personal library of some 500 books; in the rush he ultimately took about 200 with him, including a 1933 edition of Kalila wa Dimna. Since then he has been displaced 13 times and is now sheltering in the Al-Mawasi refugee camp in the south. The report noted that Gaza has been in a state resembling famine for most of the war, and that he had at one point considered trading the entire library for a kilogram or two of flour. "These books are a part of me," Omar told Al Jazeera. He has now established the "Phoenix Library" in Gaza City, which holds around 7,000 volumes, 3,000 of them salvaged from libraries destroyed in the fighting.

Shahed Abu Husa, 30, took two dogs with her when she left the Jalaa neighborhood of Gaza City on October 16, 2023—Lily and Bobby. According to Al Jazeera, she subsequently moved from Al-Shifa Hospital to Tal Al-Hawa, south of Gaza City, then to a private residence, and finally to a school shelter. Bobby died of starvation after food ran out; during the famine Lily survived on the lentils and bread she shared with the family. "I never thought of leaving Lily behind," Shahed told Al Jazeera, "she is a member of our family." She hopes that all Gaza's pets can be "free from fear and harm, with food, with water, with a place to sleep"—a refuge that, under the siege, is almost nowhere to be found.

Yassin Ghubat, 16, clutched his oud as he left Beit Lahia on October 12, 2023. According to Al Jazeera, Yassin had owned the instrument since January 2023 and was learning to play under the guidance of a neighbor who was an oud player. After the family was displaced to Al-Zawayda in central Gaza, their original home was later bombed and the instrument was buried in the rubble. He later retrieved the oud from the wreckage and kept playing; now, whenever the buzz of Israeli drones frightens children in the displacement camps, he picks up the oud and tries to trade its sound for a moment of calm. "We still have beautiful things to offer," Yassin told Al Jazeera, adding that he hopes to leave Gaza to continue studying music.

Huda Kharasa, 20, almost instinctively stuffed a T-shirt into her backpack in the first hours of the war as she left her home in Tal Al-Hawa, Gaza City—a shirt signed by classmates in the U.S.-funded "Access Microscholarship Program." According to Al Jazeera, classmates signed the shirt at the final class on September 15, 2023, and she completed the program on September 27. "The day I left home, this T-shirt was one of the first things that came to mind," Huda told Al Jazeera. She moved with her family between Gaza City and Rafah, then was displaced again to Khan Younis in May 2024; when she returned to Tal Al-Hawa in January 2025, the house had been completely burned down. "There was no trace left of the life we had lived there, no belongings, no photos, no memory we could hold onto," she told Al Jazeera, "only smoke-blackened walls." In April 2025, the family received another displacement order.

For Mahmoud Hussein, 8, being displaced meant having to take a bag of toys with him. According to Al Jazeera, after being evacuated from Gaza City to Nuseirat in the central area, he was forced to move roughly seven times, and each time he refused to leave the toys behind—even when his mother tried to persuade him to give them up. During a ceasefire the family came back briefly and found his room destroyed, with the bed, the wardrobe and most of the toys missing. The report noted that Mahmoud suffers from a neurological condition that causes abnormal electrical activity in the brain; he has been on medication continuously for two years, and the monthly neurological check-ups he requires are currently unavailable in Gaza. "Fear, stress and sadness can trigger his seizures," his mother told Al Jazeera, adding that the toys became his "safe place" during the war.