A mother stranded in Gaza City says she and her daughters are ‘waiting to die’

GAZA CITY: Explosions shake the walls of the dim basement in Gaza City where Noor Abu Hassira and her three daughters are sheltering.

They can’t see much through a small, raised window. But if the sounds of buzzing drones and booming airstrikes are any indication, Israeli forces are getting closer.

Abu Hassira is staying behind despite Israeli warnings to evacuate. She has debilitating leg injuries from an airstrike that destroyed her home at the start of the war and, like many in the devastated territory, she cannot come up with the $2,000 she says it would cost to move to southern Gaza and pitch a tent in a displacement camp.

While most Palestinians in Gaza City have fled south at some point in the 23-month long war, Abu Hassira has been largely bedridden — except for the 11 times she’s had to relocate within her city to keep safe from Israeli assaults.

Her husband is in an Israeli prison, and she and her young girls — Jouri, Maria and Maha — are among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians still in Gaza City, which before the war had a million residents.