Several of my friends here asked me if I’m in a safe place, but I struggle to explain the geography of Gaza and people from overseas struggle to understand it. So I’m writing a thread. 🧶⬇️⬇️⬇️
#Gaza #FreeGaza #Palestine #FreePalestine #StopGenocide #GazaMutualAid
1/14
The Gaza Strip is tiny: it’s 40 km long, 9 km wide, 365 km2 in area, which is similar to Inner London, or the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens combined.
It’s tiny and mostly flat, there aren’t huge differences in climate nor big hills nor mountains. There’s a few rivers and nature reserves.
There’s a very long beach all along, only interrupted by the port of Gaza. Al-Rashid Coastal Road mostly follows the coast.
2/14
When bombings, air strikes or any sort of attacks happen at one end of the Gaza Strip, depending on the intensity, you may hear it, see it or feel it from anywhere. It’s always very intense and terrifying.
3/14
The Gaza Strip is divided into 5 governorates: North Gaza to the north, then Gaza City, then Deir al-Balah, then Khan Yunis, and the southernmost governorate is Rafah.
4/14
In each governorate, there’s typically a city that’s surrounded with tinier villages, as well as some farmland, and some refugee camps.
The biggest city is by far Gaza City, where about 1 million people normally live, half of the Gaza Strip population.
The Gaza Strip was home to 2 million people at the beginning of the war. We don’t know how many people still live and how many were killed or died, with estimates ranging between 65,000 dead and 500,000 dead.
5/14
Before the war, I used to grow up and live in Gaza City, specifically in the Tuffah neighbourhood of Gaza City. Most of my family lived in Gaza City.
But my grandparents were originally from a village called Hamama, 25 km north of Gaza City, now completely destroyed and erased from maps, on land claimed by Israel since 1948, outside of the Gaza Strip.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamama
6/14
When people talk about Gaza, they can talk about all of the Gaza Strip, or Gaza City only (or, rarely, about the Gaza governorate). Most often, people aren’t precise, you need to understand based on context.
7/14
The Mediterranean Sea is to the west of the Gaza Strip, the Gaza-Israel barrier circles everything, except in the south, where there is the Egypt-Gaza border. That border with Egypt is also under Israeli control. It’s a bit like if Canada controlled the US-Mexico border. Or if England controlled the Republic of Ireland-Northern Ireland border.
But the Egyptian government seems mostly ok with it anyway.
8/14
There are 2 main roads that allow to reach the south from the north: Al-Rashid Coastal Road, and Salah al-Din Road. With frequent surprise Israeli attacks, Salah al-Din Road has become the road of death. People use almost exclusively Al-Rashid Coastal Road.
9/14
The Israeli army communicates with the people of Gaza through flyers thrown from aircraft but also through social media. They’ve got WhatsApp and Telegram channels and Facebook pages.
https://www.facebook.com/COGAT.ARABIC/
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaEss3j6BIEasQOawS1L
This is official Israeli communication in Arabic.
10/14
They last issued this map about a week ago.
🔴 The red zones are dangerous combat zones and must be evacuated. It’s a bit ridiculous how much of Gaza is in a red zone.
🟢 The green zone is mostly Al-Mawasi neighbourhood of Khan Yunis, they call it a humanitarian zone. It's overcrowded, it's impossible to find space there, and the main humanitarian organisation is the American GHF (Gaza Humanitarian Foundation), which I'd rather keep away from as much as I can. You may have heard of it.
11/14
🔵 The blue zone isn't called a humanitarian zone, so the army says they can get there anytime, but it's not an active combat zone, it shouldn't be too dangerous.
My family and I were stuck in Gaza City but we found land to pitch our tent in the blue zone, in Deir al-Balah, and we can evacuate to it (even though setting a tent and living in it is very difficult).
The red zone must be evacuated if we want to live. But most of Gaza is still very dangerous.
12/14
I hope this helps you to better understand where your friends from Gaza are, where I am, and how difficult the situation is.
Please feel free to ask me if you’ve got any questions.
13/14
If you found this thread interesting, please share it with your friends and followers.
If you’re inclined to get me a coffee or a ghraybeh, please donate to my PayPal account or my Chuffed fundraising campaign.
➡️ https://paypal.me/Mohammedshbair727
➡️ https://chuffed.org/project/mohshbairgaza
You may alternatively donate to the Gaza Verified appeal to spread your donation across several families.
➡️ https://gaza-verified.org/emergency/
And don’t forget to protest, boycott, pray for us, message us…
Much love.
14/14
🤍🇵🇸🌹
The situation has evolved a bit, I’m continuing this thread because it has good visibility.
There are 2 main roads that go from the north to the south of the Gaza Strip: Salah al-Din Road in the middle, and Al-Rashid Coastal Road.
Two days ago, Israel seized control of both, and it closed them.
15/19
Salah al-Din Road has been mostly unusable for a while. Too many checkpoints, and it’s too dangerous with shelling and random unpredictable gunfire.
But for the last 2 days, Al-Rashid Coastal Road is now under Israeli control too, and they closed it. It’s forbidden to go from south to north, only north to south. They’re denying Gazans freedom of movement, and they’re preventing the circulation of medicine. They’re isolating Gaza City.
16/19
They want to completely empty Gaza City of its population. What is it called when a country does that? Ethnic cleansing? Genocide? War crime?
The neighbourhood where I grew up is unrecognisable. The town where my grandparents were born was erased.
They say everyone who stays is a terrorist.
17/19
Half a million Palestinians are still in Gaza City and the northern areas of the Gaza Strip. The situation is very difficult and very dangerous. Most notably the exorbitant costs of currently more than $4,000 per family to evacuate. Many people die in Israeli air strikes or random unpredictable gunfire. Boys, girls, mothers. And if they stay, their fate is likely to become martyrs.
18/19
I hope this helps you to understand that the situation is very difficult, very dangerous and very stressful.
Pray for the people of Gaza. Don’t let us down. 🍉🫂💔
➡️ https://www.paypal.me/Mohammedshbair727
➡️ https://chuffed.org/project/mohshbairgaza
19/19
🤍🇵🇸🌹
#Gaza #FreeGaza #Palestine #FreePalestine #StopGenocide #CeasefireNow #SaveGazaPeople #Protest #Boycott #BDS
@liaizon You’re a very good friend! May God reward you. I’ll think of you next time I have a coffee, please think of me next time you have a coffee too, or a tea, and we can have it together, from a distance. I really care for my coffee. ☕️
🫂🫂🫂🫂🫂🫰🌹🍉🇵🇸
@mohshbair @liaizon
I heard Rami Abu Jamous
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss4cp6LCtLg&t=1
Sometimes I think if I was in Gaza maybe I could help to gather wild edible plants, to eat, to make tea... I hope you have enough people who know what to eat and how to identify it.
Maybe https://pfaf.org/user/ can help you. It helped me but I don't have starvation to solve...
Sometimes I think I'll come to help to rebuild when this war stop...
Used PayPal.
Thanks for your explanation of the geography of Gaza.
First time I saw the location of Jerusalem. I always thought it was part of Palestine within Israel, but now I see that Jerusalem is surrounded by Palestine.
Thank you so much @paulschoe for your generosity 🙏🙏🙏 I’m lucky to have a friend like you.
But I didn’t talk about Jerusalem in my message thread, only the Gaza Strip and Gaza City.
Jerusalem was on the map you posted.
@so4D Let’s hold on to solidarity, friendship, family, to faith and to hope. There’s not many other things we’ve got left anyway.
I’m very grateful for your support and for your words of hope. 🫂🌹🍉🫰
@mohshbair PS. The Gaza Verified Emergency Appeal is now over.
Please donate directly to Mohammed and to the other Gaza Verified families:
@mohshbair it's difficult to find the words to describe the immense pain I feel when I read your words or those of others in Gaza.
However, words still have value: those of us who still retain our humanity, the decent people of the world, are more numerous. You are not alone. All eyes of decency are on Palestine.
A big hug from the coast of the Basque Country. 🫂
@iwein The Israeli army is imposing an embargo. They don’t let anything in they’ve not thoroughly checked.
The Egyptian army doesn’t control the Egyptian border, Israel does.
And whenever boats try to reach Gaza via the sea, such as Freedom Flotillas or Sumud Flotillas, Israel calls them terrorists and attacks them in international waters even if it’s against international law, and other countries don’t react.
God willing, things change soon.
@mohshbair Really nicely detailed! How is infrastructure (electricity, internet) still running and managed?
Generally in news reports, photos are framed to show the massive destruction. This makes it look like literally every building has been levelled. This is why I ask about infrastructure - and also food and money. How is any of that moved, stored, maintained? Or are there areas that haven't been completely destroyed that can function?
Thanks for your sharing.
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Mohammed Shobair 🍉 from Gaza
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