The final lick of paint was barely dry on the newly built, white-tiled Al-Hasanat home when the war in Gaza erupted in October. <\/p>\n
For three-year-old Ayten, the apartment in central Gaza was a source of immense pride. \u201cThis is our beautiful house,\u201d she would say to anyone who would listen, her father, Ahmed Al-Hasanat, recounted. <\/p>\n
But two weeks after the family moved into their new home, they were forced to flee the besieged Al-Mughraqa neighborhood, said Al-Hasanat. When they returned in November, they found their apartment badly damaged by Israeli strikes. A doll belonging to Ayten lay among the rubble, peeking out from behind a broken door. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018Daddy, my doll died.\u2019\u201d <\/p>\n
From neatly organizing letters while staying in labyrinthine tent camps, to keeping branches from family olive trees, some say they are doing all they can to keep memories alive. For many, repeated displacement means reliving the trauma of generations uprooted by al-Nakba, or \u201cthe catastrophe,\u201d when roughly 700,000 Palestinians fled or were forcibly expelled from their homes in historic Palestine, during the creation of Israel in 1948. <\/p>\n
Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 after the militant group Hamas, which governs Gaza, attacked southern Israel. At least 1,200 people were killed and more than 250 others abducted, according to Israeli authorities. <\/p>\n
Israeli strikes in Gaza have since killed more than 39,000 Palestinians and injured another 90,000, according to the Ministry of Health there. <\/p>\n