On October 13, 2023, I opened my phone to Facebook to something I had never seen before: an Israel Occupation Forces spokesperson issuing an order for displacement. We were to leave immediately from the north of Gaza, including the Tel Al-Hawa neighborhood, where I am from. He told us we would be safe going to the south. Most of our neighbors and relatives fled, but my father, who has lived through many wars, refused to leave. Besides, we had no relatives or acquaintances in the south. No one in my family was willing to leave the house except for my older sister, Suha, and myself, who were desperate to believe that the south represented actual safety.
That night, we were filled with terror. Streets were deserted and darkness surrounded everything. Only a few families remained in their homes. Electricity, internet, and water had been cut off. The planes overhead — doing reconnaissance and sporadic bombings, and intimidating us — were deafening, with a noise so intense you felt like it was just outside your window. The intermittent sound of explosions filled us with terror. I couldn’t sleep due to overwhelming fear, my racing thoughts, and the threatening roar of aircraft.
At 9 p.m., my father received a phone call from a relative with news about his niece, Mai. She had been martyred along with her children and husband. She had been at her home in the northern part of the Gaza Strip when the occupation forces targeted her house without warning. This was the first news in my family of the martyrdom of a relative. It was shocking and painful, and I cried intensely. My family thought I cried over Mai’s death, but I had never met her. In reality, I cried out of fear of dying. I felt that we had missed the chance to go south and would die in the north.
Fleeing to the south
The next morning, the planes dropped leaflets with a map of the evacuation route. All I could think about was that I wanted to leave the house and go anywhere safe. When my father saw the fear in our eyes, he said he would take us to my grandmother’s house near Al-Shifa Hospital in the heart of Gaza City. In previous wars, people would seek refuge in hospitals and schools, which were considered safe. We didn’t think that there would be no more safe places left in Gaza for anyone.
We left quickly, thinking that we could return in a few days, and packed only a few essential belongings. The streets were deserted of people and life. I remember the shock my family and I felt at seeing the destroyed buildings that surrounded us at every step. I used to walk these streets every day, knowing every shop and building. What sadness to lose them. The silence was eerie. No one walked in the streets but us. I recall saying to my family that it looked like a set from an apocalyptic movie, like the show The Last of Us.
As we finally arrived at my grandmother’s house next to Al-Shifa, I felt a great sense of relief. My grandmother was no longer with us, but her house had always been a place of comfort, surrounded by people and life. I had thought that being near the hospital would be safe.
But with each passing day and night, our fear grew as the sound of explosions and the noise of clashes grew closer. The occupation forces were approaching their eventual assault on Al-Shifa Hospital. Again, I thought we had missed our opportunity to go south.
Evacuating by foot, carrying a white flag
On the morning of November 8, 2023, I woke up early and went out the pharmacy to buy skin medicine for myself and blood pressure medication for my mother. As I returned, I saw huge crowds of people who had taken refuge in Al-Shifa Hospital now leaving, carrying white flags and heading south toward Salah Al-Din Street. The occupation was beginning their ground invasion and announced that a safe corridor would be provided for walking to the south from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. that day. Evacuees had to cross this corridor by foot, were permitted only a backpack’s worth of belongings, and had to carry a white flag.
Crowds were massive, with thousands leaving the area. We decided to leave with them. I remember my sister wearing two shirts, two pairs of pants, two layers of underwear, and a jacket even though it was hot. I didn’t take any clothes with me except for what I was wearing. In my backpack I packed my sketchbook, my watercolors, some crackers, juice, a necklace, and a bracelet that had been a gift from a dear friend.
My father and brother were trying to find a taxi to take the seven of us to the nearest point on Salah Al-Din Street, specifically at Kuwait Roundabout below the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood. I remember the looks of desperation on their faces as they encountered the immense number of people and extremely few cars. By chance, a driver who had agreed to take another family, said he would take us, after the other family decided they would remain. We rode for 20 minutes to the Kuwait Roundabout and from there had to walk along a specific route until we reached Al-Nuseirat Roundabout. The midday sun was scorching and the crowds were enormous, with tens of thousands of people approaching the corridor.
The Corridor of Death
At the beginning of the route, other people on the road told us not to look at the soldiers, to avoid any danger. Everyone walked quickly in silence; no one talked. The road was lined with tanks and bulldozers pointed toward us, large sand barriers, and masses of soldiers with weapons and police dogs as large as people. They waited for their moment to pounce. I saw a little girl, around six years old, drop her bag on the ground and move suddenly to pick it up. When she did, she was shot in the neck and collapsed instantly. No one dared to go to her except her family. Everyone was terrified and just wanted to survive.
There were blown-up cars along the road. Earlier, a video had circulated showing a car being exploded by a tank while the family in it tried to reach the south. I saw a car that looked just like the one in the video, and I saw swollen bodies lying on the ground, unburied. No one dared approach them to try to bury them. At one point, my family and I became separated in the crowd. There must have been tens or hundreds of thousands of people fleeing. I became frightened walking among strangers and unsure of my direction. I had never seen this many people before, and everyone was hurrying to get away.
As we walked, soldiers would randomly stop any young man or boy and force them to strip in front of everyone to their underwear; some were forced to strip naked. Some were allowed to continue on their way, but others were taken away and never returned, their fate unknown. They would also randomly call upon a man, beat him, and humiliate him in front of his wife and children.
They targeted women and children, too. There was a 22-year-old girl, a woman wearing hijab, pushing her sick grandfather in a cart, as he was unable to walk. The soldiers called her, forced her to sit down, and remove her outer clothing and hijab. Then they laughed at her while her sick grandfather watched with tears of helplessness in his eyes. One of the soldiers used a microphone and loudspeaker to call out people he wanted or to tell someone to throw their bags away and walk without them, or to force someone to strip completely.
Those lost in the corridor
All of this happened in the so-called “safe corridor” and during the “safe time” that the occupation had explicitly ordered us to be there. I have never heard a Palestinian refer to it as a safe corridor; everyone called the Corridor of Death. The occupation forces killed many civilians, humiliated and beat countless others, and abducted many more. Horrific crimes occurred on the march south, and the victims died or disappeared without the world knowing. Only a few who were stopped survived to tell us what happened to them; many others did not return.
I survived this corridor along with my family, but the question remains in my mind: How many families left their homes and everything they had, believing the lie of the safe corridor, only to die on their way to the south? How many people were abused and humiliated when they were promised safety? How many young men were detained and disappeared, with their families still searching for them to this day?
