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Soaring above rows of 10-deep tents on the dunes stretching back from the Mediterranean is a reminder of better times in Gaza: ferris wheel.
Now Asda’a’s cafes, walkways and miniature roller coaster are obscured by hundreds of shelters set up by some of the half a million newly displaced people who have made their way to this sandy strip of coast near the town of Can Younis to escape the fighting in the northern and southern parts of the territory.
Masa al-Arbid, 10, had just arrived from Gaza Grad, with his brother and his mother.
“We had to leave a lot behind because this is probably the sixth time we’ve moved,” al-Arbid told the Guardian. “So I’m just sitting here.
“There are no games or dolls to play with, not even a house to shelter in, and because we move around a lot, I’ve lost touch with all my friends and now I don’t know anything about them.”
Always anxious, sometimes wounded or sick, often hungry and thirsty, most of the residents of the tent city, which rises among the dunes and scrub, seek refuge from the relentless Israeli offensive that has reached Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city.
Another hundred thousand have moved out of northern Gaza, where a series of Israeli operations began over the weekend targeting Hamas fighters who have returned to areas cleared earlier in the war. All are heeding instructions broadcast via flyers, phone calls and social media to evacuate dozens of numbered neighborhoods.
Although the Israeli authorities claim “international humanitarian assistance will be provided as needed” for the vast number of displaced, the reality is very different.
Many have to walk long distances to get any water at all, and cannot afford enough food. A kilogram of sugar costs USD 12 (£9.50), about six times more than before Israel launched its offensive against Rafah a week ago. The price of salt and coffee has increased 10 times, but that of flour remains stable. One problem is the lack of money. Banks are closed and few have any reserves left.
Sabreen, a 28-year-old mother of three, has been displaced four times since first leaving her home in the northern town of Beit Lahiya at the start of the conflict, following a surprise attack by Hamas in Israel that killed around 1,200, mostly civilians . She arrived ashore with five other families who had pooled resources to rent a truck that cost 10 times the usual price.
“This is not the life of any normal human being. There is nothing: no water, no food, no healthcare, not even a toilet. My children ask me if they can only eat potatoes, but now we have no money. All we have are canned goods given away [by the United Nations],” she said.
“My children already had flu, fever and hepatitis. Now they are weak and there are not enough antibiotics so I am very worried.
A few miles south of the Asda’a pleasure camp is al-Mawasi, once a small coastal town. The journey there now takes two hours on a road jammed with cars, trucks, pony carts and even bicycles transporting the displaced.
Aid workers in Al-Mawasi, which has been a haven for months for those fleeing the fighting, describe “horrifying and dehumanizing” conditions, with limited food, dirty and scarce water, overcrowded health facilities and almost no sanitation.
Dr James Smith, a British emergency physician working in southern Gaza, said: “The smell of sewage in the most overcrowded IDP camps is pungent. There is solid waste piled up on the side of the road because there are not enough staff to man the few waste collection vehicles. People are getting sicker and sicker.”
Another said the coast was “completely congested, with block after block of tents and only narrow gaps between them”.
“There is no infrastructure in the camps and very limited new supplies, of course,” he said.
Many of those fleeing Rafah are leaving their homes for the first time. A UN official in the city described an organized flight with “people lining up behind them”.
Raafat Farhat, a 64-year-old retired teacher, fled to Al-Mawasi three days ago, where she slept in the open until her family was able to build a shelter.
“We never imagined that we would live like this. Now life with electricity, water, food and shelter seems like a dream,” she said.
More than 35,000 Palestinians – many of them women and children – have died since the start of the Israeli offensive following the attacks in October, according to Palestinian officials in Gaza.
Farhat lost more than 30 relatives, “most of whom are still under the rubble.”
The majority of those who have sought shelter on Gaza’s southern coast, both young and old, say their greatest desire now is a life without fear.
“I am afraid that we will leave our country forever, I am also afraid of a bombardment in a nearby place and of stones and shrapnel raining down on us. Here we are exposed to danger and death at every moment and that is why I am afraid of losing any of my children and my family,” she said.
Sabreen said she is now “scared of everything”.
“I fear that my loved ones will be killed by the sound of the bombing and that we will never return to our homes,” she told the Guardian.
Ten-year-old Masa Al-Arbid said she was afraid her family “will be bombed or something will happen to us” and was also “afraid of losing my wounded father or uncles who are still in Gaza City.”
“I hope to go back to Gaza City and see my father and my uncles and go back to build my house to make it more beautiful than the one that was destroyed and that we will all be there together , except for those who died,” she said.
“Also, I want to become a doctor to treat the sick and injured like my father, and if I don’t become a doctor, I want to be a math teacher because I really like math.”
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