In Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood, shelters meant to protect families have instead become targets of unrelenting airstrikes. Since mid-August, bombardments have struck schools and tent encampments, leaving thousands with no choice but to dismantle what little protection they had and flee further south. The destruction of homes and shelters, combined with the siege that starves the population of food and medicine, has turned survival into a daily act of defiance.

The offensive is not new. From the early days of the war, trenches were dug around Zeitoun and the Netzarim Corridor was imposed, slicing Gaza into two parts and trapping civilians in a cycle of forced displacement. Zeitoun alone has hosted more than ten shelters, each crammed with thousands of people enduring unbearable hunger and fear. Now, renewed strikes on schools such as al-Falah and Majida al-Wasila, and tent camps in streets like al-Lababidi, suggest a strategy designed to make these areas unliveable, driving families away permanently.

Rights defenders warn that this deliberate targeting of shelters and schools, spaces afforded special protection under international law, risks crossing the threshold into war crimes and crimes against humanity. The pattern appears systematic: empty neighbourhoods in the north, pressure towards the south, and the erasure of civilian infrastructure. Western powers, once steadfast in shielding Israel under claims of “self-defence,” are beginning to express unease at the scale of the catastrophe. Yet for those inside Gaza, alarm from abroad offers little comfort as their world is reduced to rubble and exile.