What began as a desperate bid for safety evolved into a scene of untold tragedy for the Jaber family. Displaced from overcrowded shelters in Gaza City, they headed southwards, believing Rafah would offer sanctuary, a hope extinguished in fire and grief.

By late November 2023, Gaza had been fractured by systematic evacuation orders, echoing the Nakba of 1948 and displacing nearly a million people into ever-shrinking zones of refuge like Rafah and Al‑Mawasi. Among them was Bashir Jaber’s family.

On 28 November, while fleeing in a private car, the family was struck near Wadi Gaza Bridge by an Israeli airstrike. Bashir and his wife were killed instantly. Their sons, Ahmed (16) and Abdullah (11), were entombed in the wreckage. Ahmed lost a leg; Abdullah now lives with shrapnel‑related injuries. Eldest daughter Menatallah, just 19, must now bear the emotional and material burden of her siblings.

As she recalls Eid al‑Adha in their shattered home: “Abdullah asked, ‘Why didn’t you bring back Mum and Dad?’… Our holidays are now reminders of our wounds.”

In Rafah, often portrayed as a final refuge, the infrastructure buckled under the weight of mass displacement and dire shortages. The Jabers, like countless others, now depend on humanitarian permits, aid access, and a tent‑city with no clear end.

Ahmed, recovering in Qatar, prepares for a prosthetic leg, yet remains haunted: “I’m the head of the family now,… but my soul feels small, broken.” Little Hala, aged 11, refuses darkness, clutching her mother’s clothes in search of a vanished scent.

Despite their wounds, physical and emotional, the Jabers cling to resilience. “We’ll keep going… because Mum always said: ‘Those who survive must carry on.’” In this newest chapter of Palestinian suffering and displacement, their story bears witness to a Nakba that never truly ended, a people forced to rebuild their humanity amid ceaseless destruction.