Sara Awad is an English literature student, writer, and storyteller based in Gaza. Passionate about capturing human experiences and social issues, Sara uses her words to shed light on stories often unheard. Her work explores themes of resilience, identity, and hope amid war.

To those who still care, this may be the last letter I write from Gaza City.

We are expecting Israel to officially issue its “evacuation orders” any time now. My beloved city, Gaza, stands on the brink of a full military occupation by the Israeli army. Their plan is to force us all to leave our homes and move into tents in the southern part of the Strip. We do not know what will happen to those who resist. We may be living our last days in Gaza City.

Since the beginning of the war, we have heard that Israel wants to occupy our city and take it as a settlement area for its people. At first, we didn’t believe it; we thought this kind of news was psychological warfare. After all, we have had “evacuation orders” before and people were able to return, even if it was to the ruins of their homes.

On October 13, shortly after the genocide started, the Israeli army told everyone in northern Gaza, including Gaza City, to move south. The orders were accompanied by relentless bombardment. Hundreds would sometimes die in a day. Hundreds of thousands of people fled south for their lives.

We didn’t. My father refused to leave our home, so we all stayed. We lived in our home for months in unbearable pain and fear. We witnessed the destruction of our neighbourhood with our eyes.

Then the Israeli army cut off the north from the south. Aid could not reach the north. From January to April 2024, my family and I lived the most suffocating days of the war. We were starved; we spent our days searching for anything to ease our hunger. Sometimes, we were forced to eat animal feed.

In January this year, when a ceasefire took effect, people were allowed to go back to the north. It was an emotional moment that reflected just how much we, Palestinians, are attached to our land.

This time, the atmosphere feels different. It feels that the threat of permanent occupation, of permanent loss, is very real.

“In preparation for the transfer of civilians from the war zone to the south … a large number of tents and shelter equipment will be allowed to enter [Gaza]”, Israeli army spokesperson Avichay Adraee posted on Facebook.

People across Gaza read this news with a heavy heart. There are many questions and few answers: Where will we flee? When will this start? Will anyone intervene and stop this catastrophe?

People are overwhelmed – emotionally, mentally, physically, financially; they cannot endure any more suffering.

Since my family and I heard this announcement, we have been looking at each other with confused, fearful eyes.

When I saw images on social media of tents and tarpaulins entering Gaza City, my heart broke into a million pieces. The thought of my future being stuffed into a tent terrified me. My dreams are big; how can I fit them into a small tent?

I told my father I don’t want to live in a tent. Tears were rolling down my cheeks. He looked at me with helplessness in his eyes and said, “We do not have another choice, the tent is becoming our new reality.”

We do not want to leave, but we feel we do not have a choice. We do not think we can endure the relentless bombardment and shelling once again. The Israelis will likely be even more brutal when they invade this time. It will not be punishment this time; it will be total erasure.

Feeling the end of their city is coming, people are spending what they fear may be their last days in it with their families, having their single meal for the day, together. They are walking around their neighbourhoods, taking pictures of themselves with the places tied to their childhood memories, capturing everything that might be erased.

I write these words, sitting in a shared workspace where many students and writers are trying to fight the fear of what is to come by studying and working. They are hanging on to their work routines, hoping for some normalcy amid the terrifying chaos.

People in Gaza love life, even when life means surviving by the bare minimum. Even in the darkest moments, we always find a way to have hope, joy, and happiness.

People in Gaza love life, even when life means surviving by the bare minimum. Even in the darkest moments, we always find a way to have hope, joy, and happiness.

I want to have hope, but I am also terrified – not only of the bombs, of forced displacement, of tents and exile. I am terrified of being cut off from the world, of being silenced.

I feel like what Israel is preparing for us in the south is a concentration camp where we will be cut off from the world, our voices muffled, our existence erased.

I do not know how much longer my words will reach the outside world, so I want to take this opportunity to make an appeal.

Do not forget me, Sara Awad, a Palestinian student, whose biggest dream is to finish her degree in English literature and become a professional journalist.

Local Gaza authorities say the Israeli military has killed another Palestinian journalist in the strip, bringing the death toll to 239 since the occupying Tel Aviv regime launched its all-out onslaught on the blockaded territory in early October 2023.

A medical source stated that at least three Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli strike on the Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City on Monday.

Local Palestinian outlets reported that journalist Islam al-Koumi was among the victims.

This comes as the remains of a journalist from Gaza were uncovered weeks after an Israeli strike claimed her life.

Marwa Musallam was buried under the rubble after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City in July. Her cries for help went unanswered amid pleas to pressure Israel to allow rescuers to reach her.

Musallam’s remains were discovered 45 days later.

Meanwhile, the Columbia Journalism Review (CJR) has requested suggestions from reporters, editors, and rights specialists to investigate innovative methods for safeguarding Palestinian journalists in Gaza.

In a recently introduced feature, the CRJ has advocated for a courageous, innovative strategy aimed at protecting reporters on the ground, who are confronted with assassinations and smear campaigns due to the deterioration of legal and institutional safeguards.

The proposals included sanctions against Israeli officials, media strikes, coordinated blackouts, and charges of war crimes at the International Criminal Court.

“Journalists in Western newsrooms could strike. They could refuse to work until some sort of substantive demand for a policy change at these institutions is fulfilled,” Drop Site News’s Sharif Abdel Kouddous said.

“What could this policy change be? Perhaps a disclaimer at the bottom, or within, every article that quotes Israeli authorities that Israel has killed far more journalists in Gaza than anywhere in the world since the Committee to Protect Journalists started keeping records, and therefore the veracity of any statement is dubious.”

As Israel persists in prohibiting foreign journalists from accessing the coastal territory, Palestinian reporters continue to be the exclusive source of firsthand reporting from within the conflict zone.

The Federation of News Agencies of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has expressed its deep concern over the continued assassination of Palestinian journalists by the Israeli forces while carrying out their duties.

The federation emphasized that what is happening in Gaza constitutes a clear violation of international laws and norms, and comes in the context of Israeli violations of freedom of the press and media, and its policy of confiscating the truth, gagging, covering up its daily violations, and preventing them from reaching global public opinion.

The Israeli military has pursued a brutal offensive on Gaza since October 7, 2023, dismissing international appeals for a ceasefire. The war has killed at least 62,004 Palestinians, predominantly women and children.

The unrelenting airstrikes have also ravaged the region and caused significant food shortages.

The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants last November for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former minister of military affairs Yoav Gallant, citing war crimes and crimes against humanity in Gaza.

Israel also faces a genocide case at the International Court of Justice for its war on the besieged coastal territory.

Press TV’s website 

Five more Palestinians, including two children, have died of hunger over the past 24 hours in the Gaza Strip, where a rights group says Israel is enacting a "deliberate policy" of starvation against Palestinians.

In a statement released on Monday, the Gaza Health Ministry said the five new deaths bring to 263 the total number of people who have starved to death in the besieged territory during Israel’s 22-month genocidal war. It added that 112 children are among the fatalities.

Meanwhile, Amnesty International said Israel is “carrying out a deliberate campaign of starvation in the occupied Gaza Strip, systematically destroying the health, well-being and social fabric of Palestinian life.” 

In a report citing testimonies of displaced Palestinians and medical staff who treated malnourished children, it noted that hunger is the “intended outcome” of Israeli policies and “part and parcel” of the regime’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Erika Guevara Rosas, Senior Director for Research, Advocacy, Policy and Campaigns at Amnesty International, said the testimonies collected in the report are “far more than accounts of suffering, they are a searing indictment of an international system that has granted Israel a license to torment Palestinians with near-total impunity for decades.”

She also underlined the urgent need to halt any Israeli plan to entrench its occupation of Gaza or escalate the offensive there.

She further called on the international community, particularly Israel’s allies, to uphold their moral and legal obligations to bring an end to the Gaza bloodshed.

“States must urgently suspend all arms transfers, adopt targeted sanctions and terminate any engagement with Israeli entities when this contributes to Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza,” Guevara Rosas said.

Israel unleashed its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas resistance group carried out its historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Tel Aviv regime has so far failed to achieve its declared objectives of eliminating Hamas and freeing all captives in Gaza, despite killing 62,004 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injuring 156,230 others.

A mass starvation is also gripping Gaza due to Israel’s blockade of the territory that prevents the entry of essential supplies.

Press TV’s website

Israel’s military is considering a plan to recruit young Jews from abroad as it grapples with a severe shortage of soldiers amid its ongoing genocidal war on the besieged Gaza Strip.

According to Israel’s Army Radio on Monday, the proposal would target major Jewish communities overseas, particularly in the United States and France, with the aim of enlisting around 700 recruits annually.

The shortage has compounded wider problems for Israel’s armed forces, including equipment deficits and a reserve system strained by months of fighting in Gaza.

Many reservists have also reported psychological issues and exhaustion linked to the genocidal war.

The move comes as the military struggles with a shortfall of 10,000 to 12,000 troops, driven largely by the refusal of ultra-Orthodox Jews, or Haredim, to serve.

For decades, Haredi men who account for about 13 percent of Israel’s population of 10 million have been exempt from Israel’s mandatory military service to pursue full-time religious studies.

However, a 2023 ruling by Israel’s high court ended these broad exemptions, prompting the military to begin enforcing draft orders amid growing troop shortages.

Haredi leaders have accused the Israeli regime of violating their religious beliefs and threatening their way of life.

In July, the Israeli daily Maariv said senior commanders had, for the first time, admitted to the scale of the depletion, estimating a gap of about 7,500 soldiers. Battalion leaders cited crushing workloads, with some signaling plans for early retirement.

 The Israeli regime was also reportedly luring around 30,000 asylum seekers from African countries to the army by offering them permanent residency in the occupied territories.

An Israeli military investigation has found a rise in suicides among its soldiers, with the majority of the cases being directly linked to the profound psychological trauma and exposure to extreme conditions experienced during the genocidal war in Gaza. 

The findings indicated that most suicides stemmed from prolonged exposure to combat, traumatic battlefield experiences, and the psychological toll of losing comrades.

Despite attempts by the Israeli army to censor reports of suicides and the surrounding circumstances, evidence continues to emerge of a sharp increase in such cases. Media outlets have suggested that the actual number of suicides may be even higher than reported.

The army has reportedly been burying some of these soldiers without military funerals or public announcements, in a desperate effort to conceal the extent of the crisis.

In recent months, a growing manpower shortage has prompted the Israeli army to recall soldiers diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). 

The reports have highlighted a deeper mental health crisis within the Israeli army, revealing that thousands of soldiers have sought assistance from military mental health clinics or field psychologists.

With Israel's war in Gaza entering its 22nd month, soldiers increasingly report experiences of war trauma, family issues, and psychological distress.

Abu Obeida, spokesman for the military wing of Hamas, the Qassam Brigades, recently warned that if Israel chooses to continue with the “war of extermination,” it will face increasing funerals for its soldiers and officers.

Press TV’s website

The death toll in Gaza has risen to 62,004 as Israel continues its brutal military offensive, targeting civilians across the besieged territory.

Starving aid seekers continue to be the main targets of the Israeli regime’s latest strikes.

Since dawn on Monday, at least 30 Palestinians have died in attacks across the Gaza Strip, 14 of whom were seeking aid.

A medical source confirmed that three Palestinians were killed and several others injured in an Israeli strike on the al-Sabra neighborhood of Gaza City, where journalist Islam al-Koumi was among the casualties.

Four civilians were killed when Israeli forces opened fire on those waiting for aid near Kissufim, east of Deir al-Balah.

In Gaza City and Deir al-Balah, four more Palestinians, including a journalist, lost their lives due to Israeli artillery fire.

Additionally, two Palestinians, including a child, were killed when a tent for displaced persons was hit west of Khan Yunis.

Palestinian officials reported that nearly 30 aid seekers were killed on Monday alone, raising the total number of those killed while awaiting food aid to over 1,960.

Israeli strikes on Gaza City, which has been largely destroyed, intensified as the regime seeks to forcibly displace tens of thousands to the southern areas.

“Israel is using heavy artillery, fighter jets, and drones, destroying what’s left of residential homes,” Al Jazeera reported, calling the scale of destruction profoundly overwhelming.

Many who have been displaced multiple times during the genocidal war are moving again from Gaza City, while some choose to remain. The city was heavily targeted in airstrikes on Sunday, resulting in nearly 60 deaths and further attacks on the few remaining healthcare facilities.

Forced to survive amid ruins and makeshift shelters, many Palestinians express despair over the impossibility of leaving. Displaced man Bilal Abu Sitta lamented, “How am I supposed to even get there? I need nearly $900 to move—I don’t even have a dollar.”

Gaza hospitals have reported five new fatalities, including two children, due to malnutrition, raising the total to 263, with 112 of those being children.

The ongoing genocidal war has claimed over 62,000 civilian lives and left 156,230 others injured.

Press TV’s website

Australia has condemned the Israeli regime for revoking visas held by its diplomats to the Palestinian Authority, a retaliatory move triggered by Canberra’s refusal to admit a far-right Israeli politician.

Foreign Minister Penny Wong condemned the visa revocations on Tuesday, calling it an “unjustified reaction” that deepened the regime’s isolation at a time when, she stressed, dialogue had to be prioritized.

Such moves on the part of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet also undermined diplomacy and international efforts towards the realization of peace, she added.

Canberra had banned Simcha Rothman, a politician closely aligned with Netanyahu's coalition, who had previously advocated “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians. Rothman had been slated to deliver a set of addresses in the country.

Within hours, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced he was pulling the Australian diplomats’ visas.

He even went further, instructing the Israeli embassy in Canberra to apply heightened scrutiny to any future visa requests from Australian officials.

Saar said the move was also meant as a response to an earlier decision by the Australian government to recognize the Palestinian state at the 80th session of the United Nations General Assembly in September.

Many countries, including the regime’s own allies such as France, have announced similar plans to recognize Palestine since October 2023, when Tel Aviv began a war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.

The groundswell of support flies directly in the face of the regime’s decades-long campaign of occupation and aggression targeting Palestinian rights and sovereignty, including the genocide that has so far claimed the lives of more than 62,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

While welcoming the prospect of the recognitions, critics have underscored the need for the regime’s staunchest allies to decisively stop providing Tel Aviv with their unrestrained arms supplies, which have proven a key factor contributing to its expansionist and genocidal schemes.

Press TV’s w

An Israeli cruise ship touring the Greek islands has faced repeated protests, culminating in nationwide demonstrations, as activists would denounce the Israeli regime’s war of genocide on the Gaza Strip and oppose provocative behavior by Israeli tourists.

The Crown Iris, making regular trips from the occupied port of Haifa to Athens and the Greek islands, has been met with protests at nearly every stop this summer, Drop Site News, an American investigative outlet, reported on Friday.

The 10-deck vessel, with a capacity of 2,000 passengers, includes a casino, a theater, a waterslide, and a basketball court.

Since late July, protests have targeted its route, with demonstrators waving Palestinian flags, lighting flares, and in some cases attempting to block its docking.

On July 22, more than 300 protesters confronted the ship on the island of Syros, leading to most passengers staying onboard.

Throughout the vessel’s tour around Greece, activists and organizers pointed to growing frustration over “a recurring pattern of Israeli tourist provocations,” sometimes involving off-duty Israeli forces, the website reported.

Locals and activists cited acts of incitement by the tourists, who would gloat over the Israeli regime’s genocidal aggression against Palestinians and its decades-old occupation of Palestinian territories.

Those actions included “tearing down pro-Palestinian posters in streets and shops or verbally and physically harassing people wearing keffiyehs (Palestinian headscarves) or pro-Palestine T-Shirts,” the report said.

‘We can’t have Greece become Israeli forces’ playground’

“What kind of simple, innocent tourist keeps” the Israeli regime’s flag “handy while traveling?” asked Petros, a 30-year-old construction worker.

“We can’t have Greece become a playground for IDF (Israeli military) soldiers… It’s also a matter of dignity,” he added.

Subsequent stops saw escalating confrontations.

On July 28 on the Rodos Island, the police arrested at least eight protesters. The following day in Agios Nikolaos, Crete, demonstrators broke police barricades, unfurled a massive Palestinian flag, and clashed with riot police, who used tear gas against them.

These actions formed part of broader mobilizations culminating on August 10, when organizers said tens of thousands demonstrated in more than 120 locations across Greece in one of the largest pro-Palestinian mobilizations in the country’s history.

March to Gaza, Greece – a pro-Palestinian body – initiated the call, declaring, “As millions of tourists flood the country, let’s make our presence visible and loud. Let’s turn islands, beaches, alleys, mountaintops, and shelters into places of solidarity, not relaxation for murdering IDF soldiers.”

Paris Laftsis, a 33-year-old member of the coordination team, said the turnout “exceeded the most optimistic expectations” and included both the largest demonstrations in decades and entirely new initiatives.

The protests were supported by such pro-Palestinian organizations as BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Greece and the Palestinian Community in Greece as well as dozens of local groups.

Press TV’s website

The Gaza Strip’s Palestinian Islamic Jihad resistance movement has denounced the Israeli regime’s latest plan to move civilians to the southern parts of the coastal sliver, calling it part of a wider campaign of aggression and forced displacement.

“The announcement by the occupying Zionist army about transferring tents to the south of the Gaza Strip is part of the savage aggression aimed at occupying Gaza City,” the group said in a statement early Sunday.

“It represents an open and brazen mockery of international charters and a flagrant insult to the so-called international institutions that claim to exist for protection of civilians and guaranteeing the rights of people under occupation.”

The movement stressed that driving people from their homes while they were already enduring hunger, bombardment, and mass displacement was nothing less than “an ongoing crime against humanity.”

The regime announced the “relocation” plan earlier, claiming that it sought to transfer the civilians to “safe” areas. This is while the United Nations and numerous human rights bodies have repeatedly warned that no place throughout the Palestinian territory was “safe” amid Tel Aviv’s October 2023-present war of genocide on the Gaza Strip.

Prior to announcing the scheme, the regime had approved a plan to fully occupy the Gaza City, the Gaza Strip’s largest urban area that houses around one million Palestinians, who have fled to the city from the regime’s ferocious bombardments elsewhere.

The Islamic Jihad linked the regime’s atrocities in Gaza to the “daily crimes” taking place across the occupied West Bank. It was referring to raids, arrests, and incursions that continued there, alongside a surge in armed violence by the regime’s illegal settlers.

These acts, the group said, reflected two converging forms of brutality, namely organized violence by the regime and unrestrained violence of the settlers.

Both, it added, served the aim of driving Palestinians from their land and stripping them of even the most basic means of survival.

The statement also condemned the Israeli authorities’ move to freeze the accounts of the Orthodox Church in the occupied holy city of al-Quds. The Islamic Jihad described it as a step designed to solidify annexation and accelerate “Judaization,” while endangering both Islamic and Christian endowments and holy sites.

‘Unprecedented savagery’

According to the movement, Gaza was suffering not only from the regime’s relentless assault, but also from the paralysis of the international community, which had restricted itself to “repetitive statements,” while Tel Aviv was trying to impose new realities on the ground “with unprecedented savagery.”

The group warned that international silence amounted to complicity, emboldening “the criminal regime” to press forward with its war policies.

The statement urged “living forces and free peoples across the world” to raise their voices, reject these policies, and demand an end to aggression, settler terrorism, and the ongoing assault on the Palestinian people.

Press TV’s website

The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has asserted the Iranian nation’s readiness to decisively stand up to the Islamic Republic’s adversaries and force them into submission as in the case of previous confrontations.

The Corps delivered the remarks in a statement on Sunday, marking the anniversary of the return of liberated prisoners of the war that was imposed by Iraq’s former dictator Saddam Hussein on the country in the 1980s.

“Today, the Iranian nation, standing at the height of experience, faith, and multiplied strength, is prepared to crush any enemy front and any malicious plan against the security and future of its land,” it stated.

The Corps hailed the former POWs as “the true symbol of active resistance and strategic hope.”

The truth of the former servicemen’s triumph in the face of the then-adversary, the IRGC underlined, was also manifested in the nation’s victory during the eight-year war and the imposed Israeli-American war in June.

It was referring to the Iranian Armed Forces’ compelling the Iraqi aggressors to retreat amid overwhelming popular support as well as their prompting the Israeli regime to request a ceasefire on June 25, despite its having received unprecedented American support throughout the 12-day war.

The reality of the triumph, the Corps added, was also witnessed by the Palestinian resistance’s power and the Zionist regime’s and its American supporters’ successive defeats in the region.

‘Power that can bend biggest war machines’

The Corps further commended the former servicemen over their resilience that proved that “the power of faith, national unity, and revolutionary steadfastness can bring the biggest war machines and imperialist policies to their knees.

The IRGC, meanwhile, pledged to remain unbowed in its perpetual commitment to the ideals of Imam Khomeini, the late founder of the Islamic Republic, Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei, and the Iranian nation.

The Corps finally foresaw liberation of the regional peoples from Western-backed Israeli occupation and American military adventurism.

The prospect, it concluded, would “expand the geography of resistance to the horizon of ultimate triumph for the [global] Islamic Ummah [Nation]."

Press TV’s website

Oxfam says Israel has been deliberately blocking entry of humanitarian aid and life-saving supplies into the besieged Gaza Strip.

Chris McIntosh, spokesman for the global charity, said in remarks on Friday that obstacles facing aid organizations include bombings and drone attacks by Israeli forces who were now pushing ahead with the occupation of Gaza City.

But there is also the challenge of “a deliberate delay by Israel in allowing us to bring in aid”, he said.

“Israel is preventing us from bringing in generators, citing security concerns. Israel is using blocking tactics as a weapon to frustrate us in providing relief to the people of Gaza,” McIntosh added.

More than 100 organizations said the Israeli authorities had rejected requests from "dozens" of NGOs for life-saving aid to enter the blockaded Palestinian territory.

A statement signed by NGOs, including Doctors Without Borders (MSF) and Save the Children, said Israel had denied the requests because the organizations were "not authorized to deliver aid", despite many of them having worked in Gaza for decades.

Consequently, millions of dollars' worth of food, medicine, water and shelter equipment are currently languishing in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt, the NGOs said.

Separately, a report released on Friday by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said nearly 13,000 children in the Gaza Strip were hospitalized in July due to severe malnutrition.