Khan Younis, Gaza – To choose up a weak knowledge sign for his cellphone, Hussein Owda needed to stand a bit too near a bunch of ladies and ladies ready in line for his or her flip to make use of the communal loos.
The look ahead to the loos can take hours on some days, Owda tells Al Jazeera over messaging, however the reward is value it.
The media producer for the United Nations Reduction and Works Company for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) had simply returned to his company’s coaching centre – the place he and his household are sheltering – after spending every week within the Nasser Hospital ICU together with his father, who had had a critical coronary heart assault.
“I had a horrible week,” Owda mentioned. “You recognize the horrific scenario we live in and the collapse of well being providers. After every week on the hospital, I wanted to bathe and shave, and that turned fairly the mission.
“I began within the morning and now it’s 3pm. I needed to discover the water, then mild a hearth to heat it, then wait my flip in line. However, what? It’s value it. It’s a kind of issues that we weren’t grateful sufficient for earlier than this conflict.”
‘A return to primitive life’
Owda and his household reside among the many 1000’s of people that have fled to Khan Younis from the north and surrounding cities as Israeli aerial bombing and floor operations pushed them into an more and more shrinking space.
His daughter Lin is eight years outdated, his son Mahmoud is six, and his youngest is Zein, a little bit boy of 16 months.
Within the Khan Younis Coaching Centre, households are break up up, with ladies, ladies of all ages and youthful kids sleeping indoors as males and older boys sleep outdoors.
“Life is fairly fundamental right here,” Owda mentioned. “We’re making wooden fires so we are able to prepare dinner, sleeping out within the open, getting round on donkeys. It’s like we’ve gone again in time to a primitive lifestyle.
![The line of women and girls waiting for the bathroom at the Khan Younis Training College [Courtesy of Hussein Owda]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/IMG-20240109-WA0024-1705259712.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C512)
“However in a primitive life, you’d anticipate to have some privateness and even sufficient house to stretch out on the bottom to sleep, however that’s not the case with this primitive life.”
Owda spent almost two months sleeping in his automobile, which, he famous wryly, occurred to be lacking all its home windows. For many of these 58 days, he was advantageous. However as soon as the rains began, he needed to scramble to seek out sufficient giant garbage baggage to cowl the gaping sides of the automobile.
Some moments on this displaced life frustrate him, like having to line up each time he or one of many kids wants the loos.
“It’s type of humiliating and irritating, sure … however to the purpose the place you could as effectively snort about it as a result of there’s nothing else you are able to do.”
Pleasure and heartbreak
For somebody who misplaced his brand-new residence on the day he and his household moved in, Owda is maintaining in good spirits.
“For the previous eight years, I’ve poured my coronary heart and soul right into a dream – the dream of constructing my very own residence inside my household’s constructing,” he mentioned. “My spouse and I joyously finalised the kitchen … and we welcomed … a fridge, oven, and washer.”
However the household moved in on October 7, 2023, a Saturday. Earlier than the day was out, bombs had fallen on their neighbourhood, al-Karama, and their new residence was broken.
They ran to his in-laws’ residence, hopeful that they might be secure there for some time. That was when Owda bought his first tragic information: his greatest buddy had been killed by an Israeli bombing, alongside together with his total household.
By October 13, the household was on the transfer, heading south. One evening as they have been on the street, they settled in to sleep as greatest they might and Owda began speaking to his eldest, his daughter Lin.
Adopting a mock-serious voice, he requested her what she considered the tenting journey the household was on, and listened simply as significantly as she responded adamantly that this was most undoubtedly not tenting.

“Baba, this isn’t tenting, completely not,” she mentioned from her perch on a desk the place she and Mahmoud have been sitting. because the fixed hum of Israeli drones crammed the evening sky. “Look, there’s no good forest round us, we don’t have a tent, we don’t have flashlights. This isn’t the way it’s accomplished.
“We don’t have a campfire both to provide us mild or to toast marshmallows on,” she concluded as she lay her head down so her face was degree together with her father’s face and the cellphone he was holding to file their dialog so he might rewatch it.
Shedding all feeling
At first of their displacement, Owda says, Lin, Mahmoud and Zein have been petrified of the sounds of the bombs and the plane flying overhead, however now they don’t appear to react as a lot.
“Really, no one actually appears to react a lot, it’s all change into regular, what we’re going by. No one can take into consideration the long run and even what they wish to do tomorrow. We’re all in survival mode,” Owda mentioned.
“I used to cry simply,” he continued. “If I noticed a tragic baby or any form of touching moments, I’d cry. However I’ve not shed a single tear since this conflict began.

“We misplaced our home, I misplaced 11 members of my prolonged household, I dwell this humiliating life that’s the furthest anybody might think about from what ‘life’ must be.
“However, I suppose if we wish to see the glass half full, I ought to say that I’ve misplaced 20kg (44lb) with no particular weight loss plan.”
‘I’m not as exhausting hit’
Owda’s job is to supply media tales for UNRWA, highlighting the plight of different displaced Palestinians and their struggling in mild of the shortage of security, shelter, meals, water and healthcare.
As such, he’s all the time speaking to others, framing their lives and making an attempt to seize all the pieces they’re going by in a couple of hundred phrases and a few photographs. And what he sees has scarred him deeply.
“Look, I don’t have it so dangerous, ,” he mentioned. “I nonetheless receives a commission, we are able to handle. If my children want recent fruit, I can afford to pay the insane $30 per apple that’s being demanded today.
“So many individuals round me who I’m speaking to haven’t any cash. The starvation and desperation listed below are deep and abject. Think about somebody who works for the federal government or as a day labourer. Think about what sort of grinding futility they’re residing in.”