Palestinians in Gaza City face dilemma as Israeli forces advance

Palestinians in the relatively unscathed Nasser area of Gaza City are having to decide whether to stay or go after the Israeli military dropped leaflets today warning that troops would take control of the western neighborhood.

Israel has ordered the hundreds of thousands of people living in Gaza City to leave as it intensifies its all-out war on Hamas, but with little safety, space and food in the rest of Gaza, people face dire choices.

“It has been almost two years, with no rest, no settling down, not even sleep,” says Abu Ahmed, a father, as he and his family prepared to flee the city in a truck pulled by a motorcycle, laden with some of their belongings.

“We can’t sit with our children just to sit with them. Our life revolves around war,” he says. “We have to go from this area to that area. We can’t take it anymore, we are tired.”

Gaza City families continue to stream out of their homes in areas targeted by Israeli aerial and ground operations, heading either westward toward the center of the city and along the coast, or south toward other parts of the strip.

But some are either unwilling or unable to leave.

“We don’t have enough money, enough to flee. We don’t have any means to go south like they say,” says Ahmed Al-Dayeh, who was attending the funeral of one of the people killed in Thursday’s strikes, who was his friend.