‘Mama, Baba, Boom!’
The Mashharawi family have already fled their home to a relative's apartment in the Gaza Strip and are prepared for another dash at any time.
For more than a week, since a conflict erupted with Israel, they have retreated each evening to the windowless corridor, with vital documents and other items packed and ready to grab.
For all latest news, follow The Daily Star's Google News channel. "Our life is full of fear. There is no safety at all," said Mohammad al-Mashharawi, a father of triplets aged five and a one-year-old infant.
Mashharawi and his family left their own home after a heavy bombardment earlier in the week but ready to move again in moments notice.
His wife says her one-year-old daughter had been learning words like "mama" and "baba", but has now added the word of an explosion - "boom".
Diplomacy towards a ceasefire between Israel's military and Palestinian militants in Gaza has yet to deliver an end to the unrelenting exchange of fire, running through the day and night.
Israeli air strikes and artillery fire as well as the militants' rocket attacks often intensify after the sun sets.
In densely populated Gaza, there are fewer place to run. Many of the 2 million people packed into this narrow strip of land are already refugees, whose families fled towns and cities now in Israel.
Gaza's Housing Ministry says more than week-long bombardments have damaged 16,800 housing units damaged, with 1,000 of them destroyed and 1,800 uninhabitable.
Comments