Gaza: One year after ceasefire, killing and displacement of Palestinians persist
Maha Hussaini reports inn Middle East Eye on 17 September 2026:
Om Siraj al-Muzeini was preparing soup for her sick child when she heard a commotion outside her tent in western Gaza City. People were running and calling out to each other, repeatedly asking: “How much time do we have?” The sound was familiar. She quietly prayed she was wrong.
“An evacuation order for the entire block,” a displaced neighbour told her, as she gathered her belongings and prepared to flee with her children. Terrified and with no time to decide what to take, the widow grabbed her son and rushed out of the tent.
“I ran with my son to nowhere. I couldn’t decide where to go. I wasn’t prepared for this, especially since the last evacuation order in my area was issued before the ceasefire,” Muzeini, originally from the Shujaiya neighbourhood of eastern Gaza City, told Middle East Eye.
“The entire neighbourhood fled, including residents and people displaced in tents. Some went to relatives’ homes. I waited with my son in another neighbourhood until the threatened area was bombed.”
Shortly after the order was issued, an Israeli fighter jet bombed a building in the neighbourhood.
The forced evacuation of al-Abbas block in western Gaza City on 8 September was one of a series of expulsion orders issued by the Israeli military across the devastated Gaza Strip in recent weeks. Other orders were issued on the same day in different locations.
Orders like this were supposed to end in October last year, when a ceasefire was agreed to end Israel’s genocide in Gaza by stopping the daily attacks and allowing aid to flow into Gaza. But Israel has repeatedly violated the US-mediated agreement, carrying out near-daily attacks and restricting the entry of much-needed aid.
Nearly a year on, residents say the genocide continues, albeit with far less media attention.
‘Reliving the war’
One manifestation of the ongoing war is the use of expulsion orders, perpetuating a displacement and shelter crisis fuelled by Israel’s vast destruction of homes during the war.
The orders typically give residents no fixed timeframe for leaving or returning. They may have only minutes or hours to flee, with no indication of when it will be safe to come back.
Yet even areas that receive no prior warning are frequently bombed, killing and wounding multiple civilians at once.
“The evacuation orders are meant simply to disrupt our lives and keep us in a constant state of insecurity, even during the ceasefire,” Muzeini said.
“My sister was killed in an Israeli strike near her tent in eastern Deir al-Balah during the ceasefire. “So there is really no purpose to these evacuation orders other than keeping the state of war going. Honestly, I feel like we are reliving the war all over again.”
Five days earlier, on 3 September, Kamal Adwan Hospital and its surrounding area in northern Gaza were forced to evacuate following a sudden Israeli incursion beyond the so-called “yellow line”, amid intense gunfire.