GAZA, Oct. 7 — Eighty-three-year-old Omar Odwan sits quietly outside his tent in a displacement camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza. His back is bent, his face etched with deep wrinkles. Gazing into the distance, he murmurs: “My dreams were buried along with the walls of my home.”
For three decades, Odwan worked as a teacher in Libya before returning to Gaza in 1995, hoping to spend his final years surrounded by his children and grandchildren. But the war that began on Oct. 7, 2023, shattered that hope.
His home in Gaza City’s Nasr neighborhood was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in the early days of the conflict. Since then, Odwan and his family have been displaced five times, moving from one temporary shelter to another.
“When they allowed some families to return to Gaza last February under the ceasefire agreement, I thought our displacement was over,” he told Xinhua.
“I returned home and began rebuilding a small corner and even planted some mint near the door. But a month later the airstrikes resumed, and we had to flee again.”
Now living in a tent, Odwan suffers from heart and joint problems. “All I want is to die in my home, not in a strange tent,” he said.
“This is not life; this is suffering.” As Gaza marks the second anniversary of the war, its elderly population remains among the most vulnerable – witnesses to the destruction of their homeland and keepers of memories of a life that once promised peace and dignity, now surviving only in fading photographs and quiet prayers.
In a camp near the southern city of Khan Younis, 75-year-old Nabil Atallah sits on a broken plastic chair outside his tent, staring at the barren land where he once tended a small garden of lemon and orange trees.
Before the war, Atallah lived in Gaza City’s al-Rimal neighborhood in a two-story house surrounded by greenery. “Every morning, I would drink coffee on the balcony and watch my grandchildren go to school,” he recalled.
“Our life was modest but full of love.” When the bombing intensified, Atallah fled on foot with his wife and diabetic son. “We left everything behind.
The road to Khan Younis was filled with corpses and burned-out cars,” he said. “I thought it was the end.” His sense of loss deepened when the camp he had taken refuge in was later bombed.
“Now I live in a tent, sharing a bathroom with dozens of people, and I eat one meal every two days,” he said. Despite the hardship, Atallah keeps a plastic bag of family photos.
“I look at the pictures of my children’s weddings and the trees I planted,” he said, his voice trembling. “I just want to smell the lemons again.”
In a shelter at a school in Deir al-Balah, 68-year-old Jamila Zamou sits in a wheelchair, a light blanket over her legs. “On that night in November 2023, I was playing with my twin grandchildren when a rocket hit the house,” she told Xinhua.
“I remember the screaming and searching for them among the rubble.” Shrapnel struck her back, leaving her paralyzed, while her two grandchildren were killed instantly.
“I couldn’t even say goodbye,” she said. “When I learned they had died, I wished I had gone with them.” Now, Jamila lives with her daughter in a classroom converted into a temporary shelter, relying on a donated sewing machine to make clothes for displaced children.
“When I sew a dress for a little girl, I imagine it’s for my granddaughters,” she said. According to the Hamas-run media office in Gaza, at least 4,813 elderly Palestinians have been killed since the war began, while thousands more suffer from chronic diseases without access to proper medical care.
Many live in overcrowded tents and shelters lacking electricity, clean water, and sanitation. “Many elderly people cannot reach hospitals due to the shortage of fuel and the ongoing hostilities,” said Monir al-Borsh, director of Gaza’s health authorities, warning that prolonged displacement has worsened conditions for elderly patients, especially those with heart disease, diabetes, and respiratory problems.
Humanitarian organizations have also voiced concern over rising psychological distress among the elderly, many of whom have lost family members and homes.
The ongoing instability has deprived them of social support and care. For Atallah, the greatest loss is intangible. “We have lost our homes, our friends, and our memories,” he said. “All that’s left is waiting — but we don’t know for what.”(Xinhua)
