Three years after October 7, in Gaza, the living and the dead remain prisoners of the ruins

At Samar Atallah, stones fall at the slightest gust of wind. At the al-Saraya crossroads, in Gaza City, this 47-year-old widow found refuge in a bombed house. From the street, the ruined building seems to show off its disjointed carcass, timidly covered here and there with stretched and faded tarpaulins. To reach the corner occupied by the Atallah family, you have to bend your back: part of the building has collapsed. Between the inclined columns and the sections of walls, families have pitched their tents everywhere and set up a kitchen among the rubble.

“The house is about to collapse, it’s terrifying. Every night, we go to sleep with fear in our stomachs,” confides the mother. “We have nowhere to go,” she adds. It's been months since her employers left for Türkiye, depriving her of her job as a cleaning lady. Without income, she had to leave the accommodation she rented in al-Daraj, to settle in this building...