Salaam - Living in a Cemetery: Families Displaced in Khan Younis
Assalamu alaikum. KHAN YOUNIS - For some families in Gaza there’s nowhere left to go, so they’ve taken shelter among the graves.
Gravestones now serve as seats and small tables for people like Maisa Brikah, who has been staying with her children in a dusty cemetery in southern Khan Younis for five months. About 30 families are sheltering here.
A little child with light hair plays in the sand outside a tent, and another giggles from behind a hanging sheet. Daytime is bearable, but nights are tough.
“When the sun goes down the children get scared. I have four small ones,” Brikah said. “They are afraid to go out because of dogs at night, and because of the graves.”
More than two million people in Gaza have been displaced during the two years of conflict. Since the ceasefire that began on Oct. 10 some have gone back to what remains of their homes, but many are still crowded into the parts of the strip not controlled by Israeli forces.
In these cemeteries life tries to go on: a prayer rug hung to dry, a child shoving a water container on a makeshift trolley between tombs, smoke rising from a small cooking fire. There’s unease and a sense of disrespect at living among the dead, yet families say they have no real choice - their houses were destroyed and some neighborhoods remain occupied.
Others here came from the north of Gaza, far from where their own relatives are buried. Mohammed Shmah has been staying in this cemetery three months after his home was destroyed. “I’m a grown man, but I still get scared of the graves at night. I hide in my tent,” he said, sitting on a broken tombstone.
He had only 200 shekels when a friend helped bring his family here. Money is scarce, and lack of funds for safer shelter keeps many families among the graves, said his wife Hanan, who carefully washes dishes in a small basin to conserve precious water.
“Life in the cemetery is full of fear and worry, and we don’t sleep because of the stress,” she said.
There is no certainty of safety even here. Observers have said cemeteries have been struck during the fighting. Israel says some sites have been used for military purposes and therefore lose protection.
During the war people were buried wherever possible, sometimes in hospital courtyards, disrupting the custom of burying families near one another. Now that hostilities have paused, searches are under way for missing loved ones. Authorities and families are attempting to identify remains, and many bodies have been recovered from the rubble.
The death toll in Gaza has risen as more remains are found; families in this Khan Younis burial ground have seen new graves added, some marked simply with piles of stones.
Recovery, rebuilding, and return all feel distant. “After the ceasefire my life is the same inside the cemetery; I have gained nothing,” said Mohammed.
May Allah ease the suffering of all those affected and grant patience and strength to the families enduring this hardship.
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