Ahmed Ishtaiwi has six chairs. They are cheap and plastic and battered, but they are among the 43-year-old driver and mechanic\u2019s most valuable possessions.<\/p>\n
Ishtaiwi lives in a tent near Deir al-Balah in central Gaza<\/a> with his two daughters. Their former home is far to the north, in the now ruined town of Beit Lahiya, uninhabitable and impossible to reach.<\/p>\n Ahmed Ishtaiwi, 43, from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, lives in a tent near Deir al-Balah in southern Gaza. Photograph: Amjed Tantesh\/The GuardianAhmed Ishtaiwi\u2019s chairs are among his most valuable possessions. Photograph: Amjed Tantesh\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I sit on those chairs, I remember sitting in the garden at home, having breakfast and drinking tea. They remind me of my life there,\u201d he said last week.<\/p>\n Wednesday is the anniversary of the raid on 7 October 2023 by Hamas militants into southern Israel<\/a> that killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and triggered a relentless Israeli military offensive that killed 73,000 Palestinians, mostly civilians, wounded many more and reduced swathes of Gaza to rubble.<\/p>\n When Layan al-Jbour, a 15-year-old from the southern city of Khan Younis, tries to bring some order to the crowded makeshift shelter she shares with her parents, brothers and sisters in al-Mawasi, a strip of coastline at the southernmost end of Gaza, she recalls life before the war.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen I tidy the tent, I remember our home and how I used to tidy it. I remember my room and how I used to make my bed. When I put a sheet over a table and arrange the bedding, the place looks like our old home,\u201d al-Jbour said.<\/p>\n Layan al-Jbour, 15, from Khan Younis holds up a cardiology report from a hospital. The only item she took with her was her schoolbag. Photograph: Amjed Tantesh\/The Guardian<\/p>\n \u201cWe hardly took anything with us from our home. We left everything behind, and the only thing I took was my schoolbag. It is the most precious thing I own now. It reminds me so much of my school days. I loved going to school and meeting my friends there.\u201d<\/p>\n Across Gaza, Palestinians describe daily routines full of challenges that nothing in their former lives prepared them for: shortages of water and of nourishing food, minimal healthcare, disease, unemployment, economic collapse and the continuing threat of death or injury.<\/p>\n Despite a ceasefire a year ago, Israel\u2019s airstrikes continue. Palestinians who have approached the \u201cyellow line\u201d that divides Gaza into zones controlled by the Israeli military and by Hamas have been shot dead. In the last year, the overall death toll has risen<\/a> by a further 1,400 people.<\/p>\n In recent days, Israeli attacks have intensified, killing at least two Palestinians in Gaza on Tuesday, according to health officials. The Israeli military said the strikes targeted militants.<\/p>\n On Wednesday, Gaza medics said at \u200bleast two Palestinians were killed and others wounded in airstrikes in Beit Lahiya and Khan Younis.<\/p>\n Palestinians gather at the site of an Israeli airstrike that killed a Palestinian in a camp in Khan Younis on Wednesday. Photograph: Tariq Mohammad\/APAImages\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n \u201cIt is what we feared \u2026 a ceasefire that just isn\u2019t a ceasefire,\u201d said one international aid worker now based in Amman, Jordan, who worked in Gaza throughout much of the conflict. \u201cDaily life is horrible. People aren\u2019t hungry any more but they are still malnourished. Our local staff are telling us that this is just the next stage of the conflict.\u201d<\/p>\n Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN\u2019s humanitarian coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territory, told the UN security council last month that despite the increase in supplies entering Gaza, the health situation remained critical, with \u201cinfectious diseases \u2026 widespread amid overcrowded displacement sites and inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene conditions\u201d.<\/p>\n Inadequate funding for relief efforts exacerbated the \u201cshortages of medical supplies, fuel and the overall humanitarian response\u201d, Alakbarov said, while \u201crestrictions on the entry of critical humanitarian items imposed by Israel\u201d were slowing preparations for cold weather.<\/p>\n