home is where the heart is for some;

Aya Hassuna, 30, left her home in Gaza City’s eastern Shejaiya neighbourhood with her husband and two young children in November 2023, heading south amongst crowds of Palestinians forced to flee as Israel’s brutal assault on the enclave gathered momentum.

But Hassuna was the only member of the family who survived to make the painful return journey.

It is now almost eight months, Hassuna told Middle East Eye, since Hamza and Raghad, aged four and two, were killed alongside their father by Israeli bombing in Khan Younis.

Hassuna said the family had been given the chance to escape from Gaza to Egypt through the Rafah crossing but had refused, fearing that, if they left, they would never be able to return.

She had rejected another opportunity to leave for a job abroad since being widowed, she said.

Now Hassuna has a message for Donald Trump, who this week proposed that Palestinians should be moved out of Gaza and that the territory should be owned by the US.

“Even after everything I’ve been through, I refuse to leave,” she said............more........