What displacement looks like for Palestinians in Gaza as the war between Israel and Hamas rages on

Displacement has affected the majority of Palestinians in Gaza who are experiencing the years-long war between Israel and Hamas. The Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, an international non-governmental organization, has put the number of internally displaced persons in the Gaza Strip at 1.9 million.

Among the displaced, recent photos Posted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on

“We gathered from 10 a.m. and then everyone left. There were injured people,” Youssef Zaid told CBC freelance videographer Mohamed El Saife. “People were terrified. It was very scary.” Zaid said he was among the people forced to leave Jabalia and who appeared in one of the IDF photos.

Over the past year, Palestinians in Gaza have been moving from north to south, under instructions from the IDF. Many of the nearly two million displaced people in Gaza, estimated by international organizations, including the United NationsI hope they can return home, but as the war continues, that hope diminishes.

Sitting in his uncle’s house in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, Zaid said that on October 21, he and his family, along with hundreds of other civilians, were ordered to go to the center of Jabalia and prepare on the evacuation. The message was sent through leaflets and drones equipped with microphones.

Zaid and his wife and six children had been sheltering at a school, but when fighting flared in the north, they were asked to move again and head south.

“I swear we were scared…we didn’t know what was going to happen,” he said.

At that point, he said, civilians were surrounded on all sides by tanks and possibly snipers. Everyone was asked to hold up their Palestinian ID, the white piece of paper in their hands, look ahead and continue walking.

“The men are afraid to speak or talk about anything, the whole situation was scary,” Zaid said.

Over the next five hours, the men were separated from the women and children, had to line up with the rest of the group and go five by five to a checkpoint, where IDF soldiers searched them and their belongings.

Zaid held up the photo on his phone and said this moment was the “most difficult situation” of the entire evacuation because he was separated from his family.

In a statement to CBC News, the IDF said such evacuations are carried out “to protect the unaffected population.”

While calling for the evacuation of civilians from combat zones, the Israeli military said the military will not refrain from operations in the area “if it identifies activities of terrorist organizations that threaten Israel’s security.”

The IDF said all persons suspected of terrorist activities “are being detained and interrogated.” Those found not to be involved in suspicious activities are released. “In some cases, detainees are required to remove clothing to check for hidden explosives or other weapons,” the statement said. After the search, their clothes are returned.

Ivana Hajzmanova, global monitoring manager at the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center in Switzerland, said that while it is difficult to quantify, the center estimates that Palestinians in Gaza have been displaced at least “ten times” in the past year.

“The human toll of this war is extremely high,” she said. “For some, displacement has been a requirement in Palestine for decades – grandparents, parents and children are continually displaced by conflict and violence in the area.”

Hajzmanova said that even after leaving their hometown, Palestinians face another problem: finding a safe place to shelter. Most civilians are currently in “less than 20 percent of the space in Gaza,” she said. “Most of the territory is under relocation guidelines.”

Rehab Khalil, 45, was also one of hundreds of people in the IDF photo. She said she left with her nine children after her husband struggled to find dialysis options and died earlier in the war.

“We felt fear,” she said. “My children fell to the ground in fear.”

Khalil said she didn’t have time to bring anything other than a small bag of supplies. Now in central Gaza, she says she doesn’t know where to go, but she still holds out hope that she will return home one day.

‘And God willing, we’ll go home. What happened to us is not fair,” she said.