Displaced Gazans Take Shelter Among Graves in Khan Yunis Cemetery

In a cemetery in southern Gaza, children play among tombstones while a barefoot teenager hauls water across the graveyard before disappearing into a tent.

For some Palestinians displaced by the war, these macabre scenes have become part of daily life. With no affordable shelter available, families have been forced to pitch tents in a cemetery in Khan Yunis.

“We had no other choice,” said Randa Musleh, seated in her tent with some of her 11 children. She explained that landlords “were asking for high sums of money.”

According to Musleh, even a small 50-square-metre patch of land can cost up to 1,000 shekels ($300) a month — far beyond what most families can afford. She fled with her children from Beit Hanun, in northern Gaza, when Israeli military operations intensified.

“I walked and walked until I found land for my children in a livable place… People told us that we wouldn’t have to pay here, between the desert and the cemetery,” she said. “So we set up tents and stayed here.”

As the Israeli army advances deeper into Gaza City, more residents are fleeing south, straining resources in already overcrowded areas. On Thursday, the Israeli army said 700,000 people had left Gaza City, while the UN’s humanitarian office (OCHA) reported a lower figure of 388,400 displaced since mid-August, mostly from the north.

The demand for transportation and shelter has sent prices soaring. UN data shows families may be charged over $3,000 for a tent, land space, and transport. Many, unable to pay, walk south and set up makeshift shelters wherever they can.

But conditions are grim. “There is no water here, and my children walk about four kilometres (2.5 miles) to get water,” Musleh said. “And we are in the desert — there are scorpions and snakes.”

The closeness to graves deepens the anguish for families like that of Umm Muhammad Abu Shahla, who fled from Beit Lahia.
“We are in the middle of the cemetery and we find no life,” she said. “We live with the dead and our condition has become like that of the dead.”

Nearly two years into the war, despair runs deep. “Let them bomb us with a nuclear missile on the entire Gaza Strip so that we can rest,” Abu Shahla added.

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