Meet Abu Osama — The Long Journey of Displacement From Jabalia to the Unknown
Posted on 30 Dec 2025
Abu Osama is 58 years old, born and raised in Jabalia Refugee Camp, North Gaza. He was a carpenter, loud-voiced and warm, calling from the rooftop for his children to come eat breakfast.
His oldest memories are of life before war; his wife kneading dough in the early morning, singing the song “El-Helwa Di” gently through the house while their seven children ran to school with books in hand. The smell of bread and coffee filled narrow alleys. Eid gatherings meant grilled meat, neighbours laughing, homes open and full. That was the last time he saw Jabalia as it was.
Everything changed on October 7, 2023. Bombing reached the camp within two days. His family took only clothes and bread before fleeing. They expected to return in days. Instead, they spent months running, from Al-Shati, Al-Tuffah, Al-Bureij, Deir al-Balah, Rafah, Khan Younis, back to Deir al-Balah, Gaza City, again to Khan Younis, then to Nuseirat, and finally to Al-Daraj, Al-Sabireen Site, where they live now in a tent.
He has been displaced more than ten times. Every time he believed it was the final move, it wasn’t.
Displacement snapshot, November 2025
Gaza is now divided between fragile return areas in Gaza City and the north, and long displacement belts in Khan Younis, Mawasi Rafah, and the Middle Area. Since October 10, there have been over 750,000 displacement movements. While movements have stabilized in recent weeks, people are living in uninhabitable conditions and often relocate locally when sites flood. On average, people have been displaced six times. They are exhausted and increasingly risk-averse.
The ceasefire has not restored normal life. Instead, it has led to partial, unsustainable returns and semi-permanent sites, with the likelihood of prolonged displacement.
Returns to Gaza City and the north are concentrated in Yellow Line neighborhoods (Beit Lahia, Jabalia, Sheikh Radwan, Beach/Al-Maqousi) and large sites like Al-Yarmouk Stadium and Fahmi Al-Gargawi School. Families are returning mainly because the south is overcrowded, flooded, and unaffordable—not because conditions in Gaza City are acceptable. Many displaced families plan to remain long-term in Khan Younis, Mawasi, and the Middle Area unless safety, WASH, shelter, and health services in the north improve significantly.
The Area of Responsibility for Humanitarian Action covers all of Gaza, starting inside the Yellow Line and expanding as the context evolves.
In the tent he shares with his wife, seven children, and elderly mother-in-law, there is no privacy or warmth. The ground is mud when it rains, dust when it dries. Children sleep pressed together for warmth. Lighting a fire risks smoke inhalation or drawing military attention.
He grieves for Jabalia. He returned once, after bombing, and found only rubble, neighbours gone, many killed or missing. He describes walking through silence where a community once breathed.
DRC Site management in Gaza
Around 600,000 people live in displacement sites across Gaza and more than a million live outside formal sites, with thousands of tents already flooded or collapsed after the first serious rains.
Thanks to a hybrid partnership model, DRC and its partners reach the hardest-to access communities across more than 42 sites, providing area based integrated, life-saving assistance and maintaining continuity of basic services:
Site mapping, service coordination, and area based outreach and coordination to ensure coverage in underserved sites.
Implement rapid site improvements to support both Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and winterisation preparedness
Conduct participatory planning for site upgrades and returns pathways.
Survival is now the only rhythm. There is no schedule, no normal, no future planning... only the next day. Cooking happens with wood, plastic, empty oil cans, anything that burns. Water comes twice a week by tanker; queues stretch hours for two jerrycans.Water is scarce. Food limited. Shelter inadequate.
WASH, Shelter and Infrastructure
Return movements are increasing, exposing major gaps in WASH, shelter, site infrastructure, and contamination risk mitigation. Recent storms and flooding re-affirm that basic services remain absent
Humanitarian access is still inconsistent. Restrictions on staff entry, fuel, construction materials and imports continue to delay scale-up of lifesaving and basic needs assistance including Mine Action, Shelter & WASH.
DRC activities:
WASH, Shelter and Infrastructure
Conduct emergency water and sanitation repairs in key displacement sites.
Implement latrine and drainage rehabilitation to prevent health risks.
Support basic shelter repairs using locally available materials.
Facilitate waste management through community-led clean-up initiatives
Access to water: Using site management as an entry point, we prioritise underserved sites with little or no water and sanitation. In our locations, an estimated 40–60% of households still receive less than 6 litres of drinking water per person per day and rely on trucking.
Sanitation and winterisation linkages: We consider priority need for emergency latrines (including for people with disabilities), desludging (yet we know is challenging) and solid-waste removal. Winterisation planning site-management led prioritisation, drainage improvements and basic vector control in flood-prone areas of Gaza City, Middle Area and Rafah. When WASH actor cannot response, DRC to step in as a direct provider.
Local WASH / EcRec solutions: We are exploring commercial imports and collaboration with local partners (e.g. local soap production) to address hygiene-kit gaps, in sites where soap access is lowest and skin diseases and diarrhoea are widespread.
Healthcare barely exists. His youngest son Yasser had a chest infection. He could find only herbs, no antibiotics. Shared latrines serve dozens of families, hygiene is fragile. Income disappeared with war. His carpentry tools are gone. Aid arrives sometimes, not always. His sons take whatever temporary work appears, carrying water or clearing streets.Meals are reduced to twice a day — sometimes less.
The fear now is winter.The tent cannot withstand rain. Last winter, water poured through until clothes and blankets were soaked. One night wind collapsed the tent, forcing the family into the open cold. Hiba, his daughter, developed a fever. They lit cardboard and rubbish to survive the night.
What he needs most is simple, a proper shelter, blankets, waterproof covers, not only for himself but for all displaced families around him.
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Winterization response
Since November heavy rains caused severe flooding across displacement camps; thousands of tents were inundated or collapsed, destroying bedding and clothing just as winter started.
In November 2025, through ongoing coordination efforts, DRC also secured 160 new tents distributed on 17 November as part of the winterization response. These tents will support households severely affected by the recent winter storm, with priority given to the most vulnerable families currently exposed to harsh weather conditions. Additionally, DRC’s partner PARC plans to distribute additional 602 tents across five sites located along the seashore and in remote areas, targeting highly vulnerable households displaced from the north as well as families already living in coastal sites. In parallel, DRC partners have completed Winterization Response works in six sites in southern Mawasi, using sandbags to reduce flood risks and reinforcing slopes and low-lying areas to prevent water buildup.
Hope comes from family. Their laughter means survival.He dreams of returning to Jabalia, reopening his carpentry workshop, sending children to school again.
Do not look at us as numbers on the news. We are human beings… we lived, we dreamed, and we loved. Help us preserve what remains of our humanity.
/ Abu Osama's message to the world
A prospect of long term displacement
Communities face long-term displacement, permanent income loss, and a collapse in local production. This has led to even greater dependence on cross-border imports. To address this, our priority is to strengthen local self-reliance and build resilience among displacement-affected communities—essentially across the entire area.
DRC’s site management serves as the consortium’s entry point for delivering MPCA through referrals. However, stronger connections are needed to restore and strengthen local livelihoods and production. To move this forward, DRC has called for a strategic workshop with local partners to leverage our global expertise and their development experience.
We are working with local partners to scale up proven interventions, such as vegetable gardens across sites, to improve food diversity for site populations. While vegetable prices have dropped, they remain three times higher than pre-war levels—when available.
We are also addressing market gaps and inflated costs through initiatives like scaling up local soap production and supporting community-led production via group cash transfers.
