The day the flour finally ran out, and the caved-in roof of their two-storey house no longer held the rain at bay, Abdallah Abu Saif’s family gently lifted the 82-year-old grandfather on to a donkey cart and fled Jabalia.
Weak from hunger, deaf from months of air strikes and dimly aware he might never return, Abu Saif asked his youngest grandchild to prop him up. He wanted to see one last time the landmarks of his life: the wedding hall where he married off four sons; the school where he studied, then taught; the cemetery where his parents were buried.
But on that November day “there was nothing to see — nothing left, just ruins and rubble”, his son, Ibrahim, said. “His entire life has been erased. All that remains are his memories.”