A Holiday Under Fire: Gaza Between Displacement, Starvation, and Redrawing the Map

The question in Gaza is no longer how many martyrs will fall today, but which area will be the next target, and who will be forced to displace again, and where will people find a place to pitch a new tent over the rubble of a life that has nothing left.

This year's Eid al-Adha arrived in the Gaza Strip weighed down by sadness, fear, and hunger. There were no crowded markets, no sounds of children waiting for Eid clothes, and no families preparing to welcome relatives. The scene was completely different: planes in the sky, continuous shelling, news of martyrs and wounded, and families preparing for the possibility of new displacement at any moment.

In the nights leading up to Eid and during the days of the holiday, Israel intensified its military operations in various areas of the Gaza Strip. The bombardment of homes in Al-Shati Camp and Gaza City was not just a passing military operation, but part of an ongoing policy based on the widespread destruction of residential neighborhoods, turning the lives of residents into a daily hell that drives them to leave under the weight of fear and insecurity.

What is happening today goes beyond the idea of traditional warfare. After more than two and a half years of killing, destruction, and siege, it has become clear that Gaza is facing a project to reshape its geographic and demographic reality. The repeated Israeli talk about controlling 70% of the Gaza Strip cannot be separated from the reality of the areas that are already under Israeli military control. These areas have practically turned into lands empty of their inhabitants, after their people were forced to displace repeatedly under bombardment and threats.

The question that imposes itself: what does it mean to move from controlling 60% of the strip to 70%? The answer is not in the numbers, but in the people. Under the circulating estimates, that means new areas will be emptied of their residents, additional waves of displacement, and thousands of families that will leave Al-Breij, Al-Maghazi, and large parts of eastern Deir al-Balah, among other areas that are feared to be the next targets of military operations. It is an expansion of the area of demographic emptiness more than it is an expansion of the area of military control.

At the same time, the policy of starvation and siege continues as another face of the war. It seems that the goal of this policy goes beyond direct living pressure, aiming to break the will of the Palestinians and drain their ability to endure, by turning hunger and deprivation into tools of war parallel to bombing and destruction. Palestinians have been deprived for the third consecutive year of performing the pilgrimage and the sacrifice ritual, after the occupation prevented the entry of tens of thousands of livestock designated for the holiday. This was not just deprivation of a religious observance, but an extension of the policy of starvation that touched various aspects of life, depriving hundreds of thousands of families of a source of food they awaited amid the worsening famine, collapse of purchasing power, and lack of income sources.

Even the holidays are no longer immune to war. Everything that symbolizes normal life has become a direct or indirect target. Schools have been destroyed, universities devastated, hospitals targeted, markets collapsed, and today even the holidays are besieged. It is as if the goal is for there to be no signs of life, stability, or hope left in Gaza.

The numbers and data only reflect a part of the magnitude of the catastrophe. Dozens of martyrs during the days of Eid, hundreds of martyrs since the ceasefire declaration, thousands of military violations and crimes, and tens of thousands of trucks that have been prevented from reaching the strip. Alongside the food shortage, the water crisis is escalating dangerously, with a decline in drinking water sources and the destruction of water infrastructure, leading many to speak of a systematic thirst policy that increases the suffering of the population and doubles the health and humanitarian risks. However, what the numbers do not say is the extent of the accumulated fear in people's souls, and the extent of the psychological exhaustion experienced by an entire community living between displacement, hunger, bombardment, and waiting for the unknown.

The most dangerous aspect is that these policies do not seem temporary or linked to a passing military circumstance, but appear to be part of an Israeli vision that was formed after October 7, aimed at re-engineering the Gaza Strip security-wise, geographically, and demographically. Therefore, displacement, starvation, and destruction are not separate events, but different tools serving the same goal: reducing the space in which Palestinians can live and turning their existence into a daily struggle for survival.

In Gaza, where the holiday mixes with mourning, joy with sadness, and hope with fear, the tragedy does not seem to be just a passing humanitarian crisis or a military escalation that could end with a temporary ceasefire agreement. What is happening is a continuous attempt to redraw the map of the strip and change its social and demographic reality under the pressure of fire, hunger, and displacement. While the foundations of life erode day by day, Palestinians continue to cling to their right to stay on their land despite all they are subjected to in terms of killing, siege, and displacement. For the real battle today is not only for the land but for existence itself, for the people's ability to endure, and for protecting what remains of the Palestinian community from projects of erasure and destruction targeting humanity, space, and memory alike.

And despite the enormity of the disaster and the destruction, death, displacement, and starvation it has left, Israel continues its policies aimed at forcibly reshaping the reality of Gaza and its inhabitants, while we, to varying degrees, continue to engage in denial and postpone confronting the major questions related to our fate and national future. Tragedies accumulate day by day, and the gap widens between the magnitude of the catastrophe and the magnitude of the action required to confront it, until salvation seems further away than ever.

The current scene does not show immediate or rational possibilities for exiting this tragic reality, but leaves a heavy feeling that the Palestinian Nakba has never ended; instead, it renews itself in more severe and expansive forms. What is happening today in Gaza, along with what Palestinians are experiencing elsewhere, does not seem like a passing event or temporary crisis, but a new chapter in a long historical trajectory of uprooting, destruction, and attempts to erase Palestinian existence and break its will.

Nevertheless, Gaza, which experiences joy, sadness, and death simultaneously, continues to resist in its own way. Its people resist by staying, by trying to protect their families, and by their insistence on holding on to what remains of life amid this immense devastation. Despite the harshness of the scene and the weight of war, hunger, and displacement, the Israeli bet on breaking the people's will has not been realized. Perhaps this truth explains Gaza's continuation to this day; after all it has endured in terms of killing, destruction, starvation, and displacement, it still clings to its right to life and survival, insisting on being a witness to the failure of attempts to uproot the Palestinian from his land, memory, and future.