In a shattered state, this young Gaza woman fled the family home in Beit Hanun on foot with her three other children seeking safety after the Israel-Hamas war broke out in the city.

Gaza: Amid intensified war between Israel and Hamas, an emotional story surfaced in Gaza that says a pregnant woman in the war-torn city had to walk for 5 kilometres to a hospital and gave birth to quadruplets. Identified as Iman al-Masry, the woman was exhausted after giving birth to quadruplets in a hospital in southern Gaza, miles away from her home in the north of the war-torn Palestinian territory.

Days after the Israel-Hamas war broke out on October 7, the young woman fled the family home in Beit Hanun on foot with her three other children seeking safety.

They all together walked for five kilometres (three miles) to the Jabalia refugee camp, looking for a means of transport that would take them to Deir al-Balah further south. At that time, Iman was six months pregnant and “the distance was too long”, she told news agency AFP.

“It affected my pregnancy,” added the 28-year-old mother, who gave birth by C-section on December 18 to daughters Tia and Lynn and sons Yasser and Mohammed.

“Mohammed weighs only one kilogramme (2.2 pounds). He cannot survive,” she said of the child she left behind at a hospital in the Nuseirat refugee camp.

While taking rest on a foam mattress in a schoolroom-turned-shelter for her and her extended family, Iman recounts her journey from hell.

“When I left home, I had only some summer clothes for the children. I thought the war would last a week or two and that afterwards we would go back home,” she said.

More than 11 weeks later, her hope of ever going back are shattered.

At present, the Gaza Strip, which is home to 2.4 million people, lies in ruins from the north to the south. As per the updates from the UN, the fighting has displaced 1.9 million Palestinians internally.

In the meantime, the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) has asked residents in many parts of central Gaza to leave immediately while its operations against Hamas continue, CNN reported.

In a message posted in Arabic on X, the IDF urged residents in 15 identified blocks south of Wadi Gaza to move to shelters. The regions include the Al-Bureij refugee camp.

In its message, the IDF said people in the identified blocks “must immediately move to the shelters in Deir al-Balah. A temporary tactical local suspension of military activities will be imposed for humanitarian purposes in the southern neighbourhood of Deir al-Balah from 10:00 am to 2:00 pm for provisions purposes,” CNN reported.

The IDF urged people not to move along the central axis, the Salah Al-Din road, due to the fighting in the Khan Younis area of Gaza, according to CNN report. It said, “The IDF will allow the humanitarian movement of civilians through the bypass axis west of Khan Younis.”