How are Syrian refugees in Gaza coping with Israel's genocidal war?

According to official estimates by Palestinian authorities, there are only nine Syrian refugee families living currently in Gaza, out of 36 families who were registered in the strip in 2015.

Since 2012, when the Syrian war really kicked off, more than 600 refugees fleeing the daily suffering and bombardment in Syrian cities made their way to Gaza. Two-thirds of them were Palestinian families expelled in the 1948 Nakba, and were refugees in Syria.

Anas Qatirji is one of the Syrians still in the coastal enclave as Israel continues its genocidal war today.

"On this day last year, the coastal enclave was like paradise despite the dire conditions we were living in compared to the current situation," Qatirji said to The New Arab. 

The 37-year-old crossed to Gaza in 2013 via a smuggling tunnel between the coastal enclave and Egypt. 

Then, Hamas, with other Palestinian factions and traders, built dozens of tunnels linking Palestinian and Egyptian sides of the border as an alternative to bring in basic goods and others necessities of life, including people, against an illegal, tight siege imposed by Israel. 

"Because of the [Syrian] war, I was forced to leave my city, Aleppo, to search for a safe place that would help me build my future, faraway from death," Qatirji said. 

Like many Syrian refugees who headed towards North Africa, ِQatirji landed in Egypt and lived there for a few months, working in various Syrian restaurants. But, he felt he could not spend the rest of his life in that country. 

"Often, I felt the desire to return to Syria, but circumstances didn't allow me to," he said. When Qatirji was offered an opportunity to travel to Gaza and try life there, and despite the risks involved in for the journey, he did not hesitate to take the chance.

"For me, [Palestinian land] was the paradise I wanted to live in. When I crossed the border [into Gaza], I prostrated in thanks to God," he said, flashing a smile. 

Making a home away from home

Since then, Qatirji has lived in the strip and was quickly accepted as part of the community and never as a refugee. "All Gazans become my family. I did not find any big differences between Syrian society and Palestinian one," he said. 

A few days after arriving in Gaza, he worked in a shawarma restaurant called Izmir. In 2014, his work had to stop as Israel launched a large-scale war on the coastal enclave, killing more than 2,300 Palestinians and wounding over 10,500. 

"It was the first time I had witnessed a fierce Israeli war. At first, I was very afraid, but my neighbours in Gaza sheltered me in their homes. It made me feel like I was with my family," he continued. 

With that experience, Qatirji refused his family's request for him to leave Gaza, since he believed that he could not return to Syria and would not find any other place for him to live as comfortably as possible. 

"I decided to continue my life [here] with my new friends and brothers in the coastal enclave and to struggle with life and succeed as they succeed," he said. 

After a lot of hard work, Qatirji opened his first restaurant in 2016, focusing on shawarma and Syrian-Aleppo dishes for the residents of the besieged strip.

"I saw the pride and joy in the eyes of the Gazans, and I shared the same feeling. I gained thousands of friends with the people of the Gaza Strip, most of whom became my family. I got married, built a house, and felt that I owned the world and everything in it," he added. 

Like all the Palestinians in Gaza, Qatirji survived through military tensions between the armed Palestinian factions and Israel, including another large war Israel launched in 2021. 

When the Israeli army launched its large-scale devastating war on Gaza on 7 October 2023, Qatirji thought it would be lasting for weeks at most. But he quickly realised that this wasn't going to happen as Israel unleashed indiscriminate destruction and has killed, so far, nearly 40,000 people, mostly women and children. 

Like the majority of Palestinians in Gaza, Qatirji was also forced to flee shelter with his wife several times. Israeli attacks had destroyed his home, his car, and his only source of income.  And overnight, Qatirji went from a successful, thriving young man to a person caught in seemingly never-ending displacement, with no hope or a future.

"I had always heard about the Palestinian Nakba and read dozens of books describing it, but I never expected that I would live it," he said. 

"We lost everything in this war; home, life, dignity, and everything. The worst experience is living in a tent that does not protect you from the harsh weather or the missiles, nor does it preserve your dignity as a human being," he added.

Nowhere else to go

The situation is not much different for Dana Shurab, a Syrian refugee based in Khan Younis. She arrived to the coastal enclave in 2013 through the smuggling tunnels to join his husband who earlier came to the territory. 

"I fled with my three children from the war in Syria in 2013 after losing most of my family in the city of Aleppo," she remarked to TNA.

"In the beginning, despite all the difficult circumstances, we lived a 'normal life' until the 2014 war. After that, wars followed one after the other," said the 40-year-old mother of four.

After each war launched by Israel, Shurab hoped it would be the last. Now, she has lost everything in Gaza, saying that Gaza was no longer a liveable and appeals to anyone in this world to help her and her family to leave.

"Gaza is a place where life does not resemble life; it is a country where there is [an Israeli] war every day, and if the war is not in the form of bombing, there is a siege, and there is a war on electricity, water, food, gas and diesel, and high prices," she added.

Both Qatirji and Dana, like other Syrians and Palestinian-Syrian refugees in the enclave, cannot leave because they "illegally" entered Gaza and do not have a Syrian passport or other official documents. 

They appeal to international community institutions, particularly the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) to help relocate them from the Gaza Strip after the war, and possibly help them return to Syria again.