Taqwa Ahmed Al-Wawi is a 19-year-old writer and poet from Gaza. She is currently a second-year English literature student at the Islamic University of Gaza.
In Gaza, new beginnings never come without a price. Displacement by Israeli bombing and ground invasion forces families to leave behind entire lives: a familiar corner of home, the smell of morning coffee, a notebook holding stories of interrupted lives. These losses are emotional, ripping away the daily artifacts that help remind people who they are.
They are also financial. The cost of Nozoh, or displacement, often exceeds what families can afford. Basic necessities become out of reach — or the cost of leaving itself is too high.
When the Israeli military attacks residential areas in Gaza, the government’s press operation highlights evacuation orders that it has issued in the places to be bombed. Western mainstream media outlets repeat these claims, perpetuating the simplistic idea that any civilian residents have had ample opportunity to flee. Even if that were always true, it would overlook the complications families face during Nozoh — and how the financial burden can force them to stay in place, waiting for the shelling to start.
A rough breakdown of minimal expenses for a family relocating from northern Gaza to the south illustrates the scale of the challenge.
Transportation costs come to around 6,000 – 8,000 shekels — about $1,800 – 2,400 in U.S. dollars. A basic tent will cost 3,500 shekels. Food to survive the first few days will be 500 shekels or more. Renting an empty plot of land with no facilities will amount to 500 shekels. 1,500 shekels will be needed to set up a primitive bathroom. Nails, wood, or materials to build makeshift shelters will cost 500 shekels or more.
Altogether, even the lowest estimate comes to a total of at least 10,000 shekels — approximately $3,000 — just to cover the initial phase of displacement. With Gaza’s economy destroyed by Israel’s relentless genocide, leaving most people with little to no income, these costs are out of reach for many Palestinians.
“Before the genocide, life was simple,” said my friend Sundus, a 20-year-old English translation student at the Islamic University of Gaza. She recalled her family home overlooking the sea, in the Shati neighborhood of Northern Gaza.
“We didn’t need to go out because our house had the most beautiful sea view anyone could dream of,” Sundus said. “My sisters and I would sit on the lower balcony, watching the waves. Hani and Aboud, my brother’s children, would join us to play, filling the day with life.”
Amid a rain of Israeli bombs in early November 2023, Hani and Aboud were trapped under the rubble after a round of shelling. At 5 and 7 years old, her brother’s children were killed by Israeli missiles.
Sundus’s family left for Al-Shifa on November 7. “We hardly had anything,” she told me, “just a small mat, and it rained on our tent. On November 9, we heard Israeli forces were approaching Al-Shifa. We took what we could and went south. We walked 10 kilometers to Khan Younis, then moved to Rafah, living in tents all winter. Even after the ceasefire, returning home didn’t bring comfort.”
Sundus and her family returned to Shati earlier this year. “Everything had been destroyed,” Sundus said. “On September 13, 2025, our home was bombed again. We cleaned it, organized it, and stayed, because we couldn’t afford to leave.”
Since October 2023, Gaza has faced repeated waves of sudden displacement due to Israeli military evacuation orders. On October 13 of that year, residents of northern Gaza, including Gaza City, were told to move south within 24 hours. Similar orders followed in neighborhoods such as Shujaiya, Beit Hanoun, Deir al-Balah, and Zeitoun, with some civilian shelters targeted, forcing thousands of families south quickly, often with nowhere suitable to stay.
The Israeli occupation claims that the South is a safe area, but this is false. The South, like any area in Gaza, is subjected to daily shelling and destruction. Many Gazans fled there hoping to find safety, to discover it offers no refuge. Open spaces fill quickly with incoming families, streets are crowded with tents, and essential resources rapidly run out. Residents travel long distances seeking safety, yet protection is never guaranteed.
The dangers are immediate and severe. Early on Wednesday, I was trying to sleep, having trouble because of the constant sound of Zenana, or drones, and helicopters. At 1:34 a.m., explosions hit the residential Al-Ain Jalout Tower. The whole area shook, highlighting once again that the South is not safe.
In recent months, major attacks have targeted southern Gaza, including airstrikes on humanitarian teams and hospitals, as well as repeated strikes on displacement camps, making the places people have fled to as dangerous as the places they left.
“It pains us to leave, and we did so only under coercion, exhausted and unwilling,” said the journalist Waad AboZaher. “God bears witness to our patience and perseverance.”
Life under displacement means long queues for bread and water, laundry piled high on weary shoulders, and children falling asleep exhausted — not from play, but from running to survive. Overcrowded tents with thin walls let in cold and fear, while grief is held in and tears swallowed beneath thin blankets. Survival requires constant adaptation: sharing tight spaces with strangers, smiling while breaking inside, caring for children with exhausted hands, and navigating basic necessities like water, food, and safety.
“Who would believe that a ruined patch of land could make people weep as they leave?”
“If my grandchildren ask me about Gaza, I will tell them its people endured, stayed on their land, loved their country despite everything, and those who left did so reluctantly,” said Abdullah Shershara, a lawyer in Gaza City. “They tried to stay until the last moment; when hope failed, they tried again. When both stranger and kin abandoned them, they left under compulsion, not choice. Who would believe that a ruined patch of land could make people weep as they leave? Who would think a demolished building is embraced before the final departure?”
For those who cannot afford the costs of relocation, the only choice is to face danger and bombardment while staying in place. Nozoh is a slow-moving death, weighing heavily on bodies, minds, and hearts alike.
For AboZaher, a silence follows displacement. “We feel an overwhelming desire to cry,” she said, “but no one can.”
My friends and their families are all in the north. I speak with them daily, trying to keep up with their situations. The shelling never stops. Israeli occupation attacks people during movement, during displacement, and even after they flee to supposedly safer areas.
Many of my friends and their families have no internet at all. I think about them constantly, my heart heavy with worry, and I pray for them without stopping. Uncertainty, fear, and helplessness make survival feel fragile. Every message is a lifeline, every silence a source of anxiety.
At 4:28 a.m., my friend Sundus sent me a devastating WhatsApp message:
“Good morning, my sister Taqwa—they hit our house. My brother and his wife were killed.”
The occupation watches and controls us. Yet I feel it is my duty as a friend to document this life, to tell the world we are here. We are not numbers. We have dreams, ambitions beyond all limits, but the occupation insists on killing those dreams.
That is why I am writing this. To record my friends’ stories on the page. In Arabic, we often say: We are the dead who walk with living bodies. Now I ask: Why are we dying while we are still alive?
