Can you imagine what it feels like to be told that you and your family may be killed if you do not leave your home? That you all have minutes to leave, with no possessions, or face death?
I do. Five times.
Five times now we have had to do this. Five times now, my family has been forced from safety. Sometimes we are “warned”. Orders are handed down by the Israeli military demanding that we must move on within hours. Other times, we only know to leave when the bullets crack against the walls of our shelter. In these cases, we have to run with nothing but the clothes on our backs and what little we can hold in our hands.
Each displacement comes with the fear that our homes will either be destroyed or looted while we are gone. Right now, I’m sheltering in a home belonging to a friend who fled south. More than four families are sharing this space. The buildings across from us have been flattened. Turned to rubble. Every night I worry that we’re next.
Entire streets, neighbourhoods and communities have been wiped from the map. The place I grew up in is........