‘We want our real lives back’

Fatma and Shereen, who left the Gaza Strip for Egypt, sitting on a blanket while Fatma’s children play, in Cairo. — ©2024 The New York Times Company

IN Gaza, they owned olive trees, flower gardens, factories, stores and homes they had built and tended for decades. They had memories bound up in family photos, in knick-knacks, in embroidered shawls. They had cars to drive, classes to attend, the beach minutes away.

Now, in the Egyptian capital of Cairo, where tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled, they find themselves in rented apartments overlooking concrete. They have few job prospects, dwindling savings and no schools for the children – a new world they know is safe but hardly feels like a future.