Shadi Altatari prays his home – or at least one or two rooms – in northern Gaza is still standing after 15 months of Israel’s genocidal war.
“I want to house my children there,” the 37-year-old paramedic and father of five tells Zeteo as he packs what his family can carry and heads north from the tent they've been sheltering in central Gaza's Deir al-Balah.
“It is better than the tent, the cold, the snow,” he adds.
Like hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by Israel's relentless attacks, Altatari and his family are making the difficult journey north for the first time in more than a year after the Israeli military finally opened the way as part of its fragile ceasefire agreement with Hamas. Many are unaware of the fate of their homes, their neighborhoods, their friends, and other loved ones.
”My God. Look at the destruction,” Altatari says on the road to the north, but it’s not just destruction that surrounds the family on their journey home; it's also fears about what the Israeli military left behind.
Follow Altatari and his family’s journey home in the powerful video above.
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