Gaza Residents Endure Harsh Conditions as Israel-Hamas War Continues Into 2025

January 4

In the southern city of Khan Younis, Awad Abid, a displaced taxi driver, spent the past two days huddling with his children in a half-flooded tent. Mr. Abid said he was barely able to purchase enough flour to keep them fed, let alone buy new blankets and coats.

“Tonight we’ll cover ourselves in blankets that are still drenched in water, because the sun was too weak to dry out,” he said.

In northern Gaza, Israeli ground forces have been fighting for almost three months against what Israel says is a renewed Hamas insurgency. Repeated Israeli offensives have turned the area into a landscape of vacant, torn-up streets and ruined buildings.

The fighting in the north has displaced more than 100,000 people, and on Wednesday night the Israeli military again ordered residents remaining in parts of the area to leave for Gaza City. The Israelis said that they would soon begin operations in response to Hamas rocket fire.

Aid groups have lamented the deteriorating humanitarian situation in northern Gaza. Israel says it is allowing enough supplies to enter the area, although government attorneys conceded in a December court filing that the Israeli military might have initially underestimated how many people remained there.

Montaser Bahja, an English teacher from Jabaliya, said he was lucky enough to find an empty apartment in Gaza City to shelter with his family. In a vain effort to keep out of the cold, he spread plastic wrap over the frames of windows shattered in the fighting.

During a rainstorm, Mr. Bahja said, the near-constant sound of Israeli airstrikes slowed to the occasional distant blast. But then on New Year’s Eve, as the downpour began to let up, the bombardment resumed across northern Gaza, he said.

“We hoped that by the new year, the war would end,” said Mr. Bahja. “Instead, there was bombing all night.”

At least 45,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the Hamas-led attack on Israel last year prompted the war, according to the Gaza Health Ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and combatants. Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault killed around 1,200 people in Israel, and 250 people, mostly civilians, were taken hostage, according to Israel.

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