Gaza families seek shelter from Israeli offensive in cemetery: ‘this has become our life, all about death’
- Families displaced again and again by Israel’s military offensive on Gaza have been forced to seek refuge in the cemetery
- People say they have sought shelter there because they feel less at risk from Israeli bombardments
Displaced again and again by Israel’s military offensive on Gaza, Mahmoud Amer and his family have now pitched their tent close to gravestones in a cemetery in Rafah, the last place of relative safety in the ruined strip of land.
The family are among dozens camping in the cemetery, a sandy expanse with a view of the Mediterranean Sea on the horizon, because they feel less at risk there from Israeli bombardments.
“People were forced to come here to this safe place, which is the cemetery among the dead,” said Amer, who is displaced from Al-Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza with 11 family members including children and grandchildren.
“It’s better than living in residential areas where the houses could collapse on our heads,” said Amer, who spent weeks in other locations as the family gradually made their way southwards, fleeing Israel’s advance.
More than half of Gaza’s 2.3 million people are now hemmed into Rafah, on the southern edge of the enclave, by the fence separating it from Egypt. Israel has threatened to storm the area with tanks when it finishes a battle in Khan Younis just north of it.
The cemetery has neat rows of low cement graves that predate the war, with plants and flowers growing on them, inscriptions and peeling paint.
It also has more rudimentary graves, those of people killed in the war: mounds of raised sand the length of bodies, with crude blocks of cement at each end.