Sheffield family stranded in Gaza with no way out as Israeli-Hamas conflict intensifies

Qasem Fara, aged 21, a biomedical sciences student and his father Musheir El-Farra, 62, a civil engineer, both from Heeley, were visiting family in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, when the conflict broke out.

Since then, they and the Palestinian citizens of Gaza have endured a bombardment of Israeli air strikes which have razed the buildings to the ground around them and killed more than 4,000.

They are in retaliation for Palestinian militant group Hamas’ deadly attack on Israel on October 7 in which at least 1,400 Israelis were killed.

Gaza is a narrow strip of land between Israel, the Mediterranean Sea and Egypt. It is ruled by Hamas and home to over two million Palestinians.

Mr Fara said: “It’s surreal, you hear the sound of something hitting the floor with such vicious power. It’s something that I have never experienced before.

“I’ve actually seen a shell drop from the sky the other day, perfectly vertical to the floor.

“I watched it drop, I watched the black smoke engulf the air and it’s mad.

“It’s the things you see in the films but it’s ten times worse in real life. When you come to visit these sights, people are in complete panic and they don’t know what to do.

“There are some people picking up the rubble, trying to save people who are still trapped under the rubble.”

Many families have had their homes destroyed by the strikes.

Mr Fara, who studies at the University of Manchester, spoke of seeing ‘neighbourhoods all destroyed’, people picking up rubble in an attempt to rescue victims and children put on stretchers, then rushed into a consecutive stream of ambulances moving to and from the scene.

During the chaos the people of Khan Younis have had to find coping mechanisms, he said. The immense pressure and stress from the attacks has driven them to this.

Mr Fara said: “You go into somebody's house, they offer you tea, they ask you to sit with them, you know.

“They have nothing to give yet they still give to each other. This is how people down here survive, we have a strong mentality.”

He said that for now shops were trying to operate normally, but already he had seen shortages in some areas.

“I went to the shop to get a sandwich, and they had run out of bread. The bakeries are closed,” he said.

“People are trying to stay normal, trying to keep good morale, trying to keep shops open but of course they are panicking, they are scared.

For now Mr Fara said that the best way forward would be for the fighting to stop.

He said: “I believe the best thing right now would be for a cease-fire. This is what the people want, the people of Palestine do want peace.

“It's just, right now a solution is kind of hard to think of but definitely right now there needs to be a cease-fire and they need to stop murdering people.

“There’s definitely no solution to this by murdering more people and having more bloodshed.”

When it comes to their escape route, they have had minimal luck. Mr Fara has been in contact with the British Embassy and border control in an attempt to leave the Gaza strip.

He said: “They tell us one day they are going to open the border, you spend the whole day packing your things saying goodbye to people, becoming emotional and then they tell you that “no, there is no exit today.”

Mr Fara and his father travelled to Gaza for support following the death of their 16-year-old brother and son Qayis, of bone cancer.