Last Glimpses of Gaza City Before Israeli Takeover

A video shot during a brief bicycle ride along Gaza City’s seaside Al-Rashid Street captures the whole picture. Once the city’s most sought-after promenade, it now lies in ruins, lined with bombed buildings and rows of makeshift tents sheltering displaced families.

Footage from Gaza City’s Al-Rashid Street

Amid the devastation, people cling to fragments of daily life: some queue for meals at a donation-run kitchen, others carry buckets to fill with water from a tanker. Children can be seen hauling sacks of food or wet clothes rinsed in the sea.

Footage from the beach and the vicinity of Al-Shifa Hospital

This may well be the final glimpse of the “routine” that had taken root in Gaza City. With airstrikes intensifying and the IDF issuing a blanket evacuation order on Tuesday, many residents are once again on the move — for the nth time — while others remain behind or search for pockets of safety within the city. However fragile and uncertain it was, the “blessed routine” of Gaza’s residents has now come to an end. This is what it once looked like.

Source: First published in Haaretz