The Humanitarian Bulletin | January-May 2021

“I have many dreams, but I am now convinced of the importance of remaining in Gaza in dignity, rather than crossing the border to Israel again”, says Yousef, a 19-year-old man from Gaza. When he was 17 years old, his thoughts were very different, and he says that his current belief was acquired at a very high cost.

My son has a house that is located within the boundary of the local outline plan in our village, whereas my house is located outside the planned area. At night, I can’t sleep out of fear of the soldiers arriving at any moment to demolish my house. When all the worrying gets too much for me and I want to get some sleep, I go to my son’s house. The risk of my house being demolished is still there, but I know that his house is safe and secure, and that makes me feel better. Next to us, the settlers are expanding their settlement. We can hear a bulldozer working, but we can’t do the same here.

“We used to buy tankered water at an extremely high price, but now it’s hard to even find anyone to bring us water out of fear that soldiers could confiscate the truck,” according to Salem, a 45-year-old father of five.