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Tired, Hungry, Scared, but A Spirit Sustains Them Somehow.

Relocating for the umpteenth time. Who knows Where of it it is safe.

Displaced Palestinians in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip pack their belongings following an evacuation order by the Israeli army on Monday amid the ongoing conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas movementCrdit Getty Image

For many Palestinians the decision to flea Rafah was not an easy one. Many of those who ended up there have relocated from their origional homes four, five, maybe six times. It became exasperating and was frought with decisions not unlike playing Russian Roulette. It’s a crap shoot and the losers end up dead or losing more loved ones.

There are no automatic good places to go. Food is scarse everywhere but worse the further north you go. Maybe the best of really bad healthcare possibilities were closest to Rafah. If you rely on what the Israelis tell you what is safe, you may find the information totally unhelpful. I’m not going to say that they intentionally mislead people to put them in the crosshairs of their next attacks, but that is often just want happens.

The displaced population in Rafah was between around 1.7 million citizens, mostly living in tents. It is had become the most densely populated area n the world. But the time the Rafah operation was underway, some 600,000 had vacated in a matter of days. As the attacks were underway many were still moving by whatever means they had. Foot, animal drawn cart, some in vehicles — the latter small in numbers. Besides the issue of…

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Michael A Wells - INFP personality type
Michael A Wells - INFP personality type

Written by Michael A Wells - INFP personality type

Held captive in the Midwest but I love San Francisco, black coffee, chardonnay and diet coke. My vice is SF Giants baseball. I'm the poet you are running from.

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