The first hostages are set to be released
She’s from Gaza, but she doesn’t eat or sleep: “We talked to a Palestinian refugee camp in Gaza” — A Palestinian woman’s perspective
She tells us she’s been in Jordan for 46 years. When we ask her where home is, she points – right around the corner. She says her heart is in Gaza.
“I don’t sleep,” she continues. Do you know what my children did? They broke my TV so they wouldn’t watch what happened there. I’m on the phone all the time.
“I don’t cook anymore. I don’t eat anymore because of what is happening in Gaza,” she says through an interpreter. Two of her daughters are sheltering at a U.N. school in Gaza near Rafah Crossing.
She asked us to identify her as Um Mohammed, because she’s worried about the potential security risks for her daughters who are still living in Gaza. She came to this camp when she married, but was from Gaza.
During our conversation, an older woman sits down with us on the cushions. She followed us to a stranger’s home after seeing us walking the camp, but she didn’t know anyone in the room.
The War Between Israel and the United States: A Call from Rashaideh, the Prime Minister in Gaza, and a Redneck in Jordan
“How are you?” was what I asked when I got a call through, says Rashaideh. Are you doing what you’re supposed to? Take care of yourselves and your sisters.'”
All of his family are inside of Gaza. Trying to reach them is his most important priority. Internet and cell phone service have been cut repeatedly in Gaza in the past month. Israel, which maintains a blockade on Gaza, hasn’t said if it’s trying to cut off communications.
The man next to Ghawanmeh tells us he was visiting the camp from Gaza for a few months, because his father is from here. His name is Maher Rashaideh – and now, because of the war, he’s not able to get home.
There is a cease-fire that calls for more aid to be allowed into Gaza. Israel has imposed a near total siege on Gaza since the attacks on it by Hamas. That has severely restricted the deliveries of food, fuel and medicine, worsening a humanitarian crisis for the population that predated the war.
A young boy is in a room with us and is giving us coffee and dates on a plate. He told us he wants a cease-fire, not a humanitarian pause. His wife is Gazan and her entire family lives there.
Several others follow Ghawanmeh and our team into his house. The pillows lining the wall are brown and flowered. The US State Secretary spoke about the war on the TV in the center of the room while it was shown on Al Jazeera Arabic.
Al Din goes on to say he despises Biden, but he understands there is a difference between people and their government – a sentiment shared by many of the people we spoke to in Jordan. Al din was born in Gaza in 1945. He was three years old when his family was forced out.
Abu Emad Al Din tells us that America is the enemy, but he agrees to talk to us. Many people in the region feel some version of this way, since the United States government – with the strong support of President Biden – offered $14 billion in military aid for Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas.
As we walk with Musri, we’re approached by an older man wearing a traditional red and white keffiyeh. As we introduce ourselves, he stops and asks, “American?” We have confirmed it.
The Gaza Camp of the Nakba: A Model for Interaction Between Hamadesis and Palestinians in the 1948 Gaza Mass Displacement
Many of the residents were born in this camp, and some arrived in Jordan at other moments of conflict, like the Nakba, Arabic for “catastrophe” – the mass displacement of 1948.
The first thing that foreign journalists notice when they get permission to visit Hitten is how permanent it looks. The word “camp” suggests a temporary arrangement and rows of tents. But Hitten has been here for generations, complete with concrete buildings and well-established neighborhoods dotted with mosques, narrow alleys, shops and a lively vegetable market.
“Of course we are angry because children are being slaughtered,” he says through his interpreter. Hospitals were bombed. People in the camp are very angry at what happened.
We came here earlier in November to ask what’s on their minds, as war and violence unfold in places that may be miles away, but that feel central to their identities.
There will be a total of 230 trucks going in through the Egyptian border with humanitarian aid, medicine and fuel.
Since the beginning of the war, communication in Gaza has been difficult and intermittent because of Israeli disruptions and a lack of fuel.
The first cease-fire of humanitarian operations between Israel and Hamas in Gaza went into effect early Friday morning, killing two Palestinians and injuring five
People are looking at what is left of their homes. “They don’t know anything about what has happened to relatives after they lost all contact with them.”
She said that even people who knew their homes had been destroyed by Israeli warplanes wanted to return to see what could be salvaged.
She said she fled with her family to southern Gaza weeks ago. She said they were trying to figure out if they could return.
Some residents of the north of Gaza were ordered by the Israelis to move to the south of the small territory. 1.7 million Palestinians have had to flee their homes in the northern part of Gaza because of the Israeli military. The displaced are sheltering in schools, mosques, hospitals or with family and friends.
“The cease-fire for humanitarian purposes is temporary,” the spokesman said, insisting that northern Gaza, where the fighting has been concentrated, “is a dangerous war zone and it is forbidden to move around.”
For the first time in seven weeks, the skies above the besieged territory were empty of Israeli warplanes. But as some tried to return home to northern Gaza from parts farther south on foot, Israeli forces on the ground opened fire on them, according to witnesses, an Egyptian official and some of those injured.
A four-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza went into effect early Friday. The first exchange of Israeli hostages for prisoners from the Palestinians takes place after the temporary truce ends.
An Egyptian official, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the situation, said an Israeli tank fired at a group of Palestinians at an Israeli checkpoint in the south of Gaza City on Friday morning, killing two people.
The director of Human Rights Watch said that parts of Gaza’s civilian population can only be removed for security reasons. “The civilian population needs to be able to return as soon as possible — permanent displacement is a war crime.”
On Friday morning, the man was among thousands of other Palestinians trying to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip. But as they tried to make their way along a road on foot, he said, Israeli forces nearby opened fire on them. Mr. al-Nasir said he was shot in the leg and is now unable to walk.
According to Egypt’s state information service, 130,000 liters (about 34,000 gallons) of diesel and four trucks of gas from Egypt will enter the Gaza Strip on the first day. 200 trucks with food, medicine, and water will be entered into the Gaza Strip daily for the first time since the beginning of the Israeli war on the Strip, as soon as the truce agreement enters into force, according to a report.
Since the conflict began, Israeli air strikes have devastated large areas of Gaza, leaving it without electricity, food and clean water for 2.3 million people. According to UNRWA, the U.N. relief agency overseeing Palestinians, more than a million Gazans have been internally displaced as a result of the conflict.
About a half-hour before the cease-fire kicked in, an Israeli military spokesman released an Arabic-language video on social media addressed “to the population of sector Gaza.”
The military said that troops on the ground and in the air struck terror targets, as well as engaging with terrorists. “In addition, the forces struck a terror tunnel route, which was identified over the past few days.”
In a statement, the Israel Defense Forces says it “has completed … operational preparations according to the combat lines of the pause,” adding that it had destroyed a tunnel complex it identified earlier this week under the Al-Shifa hospital in northern Gaza.
Following last month’s Hamas attacks, Israel vowed to destroy the militant group and responded with heavy air and ground strikes on Gaza. Israel now controls a large portion of Gaza’s north.
There are 10 dual U.S. and Israeli citizens who are not accounted for, according to a senior Biden administration official. A young girl with her parents killed during the initial Hamas attack could be released. The girl turns 4 on Friday.
The hostages-for-prisoners exchange is expected to occur in batches over the four days of the truce. Israel, which says it notified the families of the hostages expected for release on Friday, has not made a list public.
There was no announcement from either Israel or Hamas about when the agreement was going to start. More than 12,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the beginning of the year.
