By: Ruwaida Amer in Gaza, occupied Palestine – Middle East Eye
Earlier this year, when a rumour spread that Palestinians could travel from southern Gaza to the north, Sabreen Lashin was one of the first to attempt to return home.
But, much to her disappointment, the mother from Gaza City’s al-Shati refugee camp was blocked by Israeli forces occupying the so-called Netzarim corridor, or the “axis of death” as Palestinians refer to it.
Fed up with the miserable life of displacement she had endured in southern Gaza for a year and three months, she refused to give up.
Along with five other women, she attempted to explain to the soldiers the harsh living conditions in southern Gaza.
There, she had been displaced 14 times, each time seeking safety from Israeli bombardment, but to no avail.
“My children can’t find work, and I can’t afford the medication I need,” the 44-year-old tells Middle East Eye.
“The constant displacement, hunger, bombings, and humiliation in the south eventually pushed me to make the difficult decision to return to the north, despite the risks.”
At the checkpoint in the Netzarim corridor, some Israeli soldiers listened to her, while others remained silent. All of them rejected her pleas to return to her home.
‘Each time, I narrowly escape death, but I refuse to give up’
– Sabreen Lashin, displaced Palestinian
Without warning, she says, Israeli forces began shooting at people who had approached the corridor, hoping to return home.
“One of the women, a 35-year-old, was shot twice – once in the back and once below her chest,” Lashin told MEE.
She clutched Lashin’s arm, pleading with her not to leave her behind for the soldiers to find.
Lashin had no choice but to drag the woman back toward the south, as the others fled in fear from the sound of gunfire.
As they moved, a tank rolled over the area, threatening to run over the woman.
A soldier stepped out and told Lashin to leave the woman behind, but she refused. “She’s still alive,” Lashin insisted.
She eventually managed to drag the woman along the road until she reached a group of young men, who helped take the wounded woman to al-Awda hospital in Nuseirat. But tragically, she did not survive.
This was one of 12 attempts Lashin made to return home in northern Gaza, and it likely won’t be the last.
“Each time, I narrowly escape death, but I refuse to give up,” she says.
“I keep hoping that one day the soldiers will show some mercy and let me return.”
At the Netzarim corridor, she adds, the area is filled with military jeeps and tanks, while drones hover overhead, targeting anyone who approaches.
But the risk of dying while attempting to return home is better than staying displaced in the south, she tells MEE.
“I still dream of returning home,” she adds.
“I want to set up a tent on the rubble of my house and live with my children, rather than enduring the humiliation of displacement in the south.”
‘An axis of death’
Lashin is one of the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced Palestinians whom Israel has been blocking from returning to their homes since the war began last year.
Ahead of its invasion of Gaza in late October 2023, the Israeli military forced more than one million Palestinians in northern Gaza to head south under heavy bombing.
The military promised safety in the south and stated that the relocation would be temporary.
However, the hundreds of thousands who complied have been bombed in the south, including when in schools, makeshift tents, hospitals, and other shelters.
Meanwhile, Israeli troops invaded the so-called Netzarim Corridor, a 6km stretch of land south of Gaza City that divides the strip into its northern and southern parts.
It stretches from the Israeli boundary with Gaza City in the east to the Mediterranean Sea.
The Netzarim route is now reportedly 7km wide and contains military bases. It is used by Israeli forces to monitor and control the movement of Palestinians between northern and southern Gaza and to launch military operations.
Mohammed Hajjo, from Sheikh Radwan in Gaza City, initially refused to leave northern Gaza.
His wife and children moved south at the onset of the war, but he chose to stay and guard the house, assuming their absence in the south would be brief.
But when the war dragged on with no end in sight and severe hunger reached southern Gaza, he decided to cross the Netzarim corridor and move south to help his family.
“I took many clothes for my children because the cold in the tents was unbearable. I also brought clothes for my wife and many other things,” Hajjo told MEE.
His journey was long and filled with fear.
“I walked for a long time along the coast, constantly fearing being sniped or arrested,” the 32-year-old father recalled.
When he reached the Netzarim checkpoint, the soldiers stopped him.
‘There were many soldiers, tanks, cameras, and scanning devices everywhere’
– Mohammed Hajjo, displaced Palestinian
“They forced me to throw away everything I had – clothes, supplies – and even took my phone. I saw a large hole filled with items from other displaced families, discarded as though they didn’t matter,” he said.
“There were many soldiers, tanks, cameras, and scanning devices everywhere. The landscape had changed so much, but I wasn’t focused on that. I was focused only on getting out of there safely.”
The soldiers held him overnight. “They made me take off my clothes, took everything from me, and asked many pointless questions – why I had fled south now, and not earlier,” he said. “I thought they would arrest me, but in the morning, they let me go, naked.”
A young man saw him on the road and helped him put on some clothes, before he eventually reached his family in Khan Yunis.
Despite the relief of reuniting with his family, the ordeal still weighed heavily on him.
“I was heartbroken because they made me throw away everything my family desperately needed. We had already suffered so much humiliation and degradation during the war. This place, Netzarim, is an axis of death, not just a checkpoint.”
Gone without a trace
Hajjo was one of the few lucky ones who managed to reach the Netzarim corridor and come out alive.
Last week, a Haaretz investigation revealed that hundreds of Palestinians, including children, have been indiscriminately shot dead by Israeli soldiers at the Netzarim Corridor.
It has been designated a “kill zone” by the Division 252 commander, according to a senior officer, allowing soldiers to shoot “anyone who enters”.
Those killed are posthumously branded “terrorists,” even if they are children.
‘I hope the war stops so that I can go to the Netzarim area and search for my son’
– Intisar al-Attar, displaced Palestinian
The boundaries of the zone were largely arbitrary and extended “as far as a sniper can see,” another member of the division told Haaretz.
“We’re killing civilians there, who are then counted as terrorists,” he added.
Another soldier referred to a military spokesperson announcing that their division had killed more than 200 “militants” in Gaza.
But of those 200 casualties, only 10 were confirmed to be known Hamas operatives, he said.
Though many are killed, others are arbitrarily detained at the checkpoint and forcibly disappeared.
Intisar al-Attar, 58, lost one of her sons in an Israeli bombardment at the start of the war, forcing her to flee Gaza City south with the rest of her family.
But after months of displacement, her other son, Sami, decided to make the dangerous journey north in the hopes of returning home.
That was three months ago, and al-Attar has yet to hear from him.
“I do not know anything about him. Was he martyred or arrested? I do not know,” she told MEE.
Near Netzarim, young men gather at an area called al-Nuwairi, waiting for a chance to return to the north.
Attar says she stands nearby, hoping someone will bring her the reassurance she desperately needs regarding the fate of her son.
But the recent reports of arbitrary killings of Palestinians near the corridor have only added to her fears.
“The soldiers’ statements in the news are frightening. They say they shoot anyone who approaches that area,” she said.
“I hope the war stops so that I can go to the Netzarim area and search for my son. If he’s dead, I want to bury him. If they’ve arrested him, I want to reassure myself about him.”
“My heart has been burning since he left me,” she says with tears in her eyes.
