Credits:

00:02 Report by / Tania Krämer
00:45 Rania Abu Foul / Gaza resident
01:53 Rania Abu Foul / Gaza resident
03:38 Somaja al Batniji / Displaced person

Script:

This road ends at the so-called Yellow Line, a demarcation line separating Israeli-occupied areas of Gaza from the rest of the territory. Even filming here is dangerous.

Rania Abu Foul was displaced and now lives with her two young children in a bombed-out building nearby.

When the ceasefire started in October, her husband Muath, a veterinarian, was killed trying to reach their former home - unknowingly crossing the (then) newly created yellow line. Rania says maps at the time did not show that their house lay beyond the Yellow Line.

Relatives last saw him shortly before hearing explosions. 

00:42 
+++ Rania Abu Foul, ARABIC +++
"For nine days we were asking around. We posted appeals online for anyone who might have seen him. No one had seen him except a relative who told him it was dangerous at the time. Exactly nine days later, we received news from someone who said he had pulled him (the body) out."

01:02
The so-called Yellow Line is a demarcation boundary drawn under the US-brokered ceasefire agreement in October 2025. Talks on the second phase of the deal have since stalled - with Hamas’ refusal to disarm a major obstacle.

The line splits Gaza from north to south with Israel controlling the eastern part and Hamas - a designated terrorist group -  largely controlling the rest..

01:21
Rania says she has not been able to recover her husband’s body - for Palestinians it is a deadly and shifting no-go area.

In some areas the Israeli military marked it with yellow cement blocks, in others it remains invisible. 

01:49 
+++ Rania Abu Foul, ARABIC +++ 
"We hope they will withdraw, but I lost hope. God willing, they withdraw and life returns to normal. I, more than anyone, want them to withdraw so we can go to the area and be sure. We want to confirm if Muath is actually buried there, if he is there, to look for any trace of him. I still have hope he might be alive."

Rather than withdrawing, the Israeli military is deepening its hold on the territory Recently, it introduced a so-called orange line   – an unmarked, restricted area with shifting boundaries.

Last week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanjahu said that Israeli forces are now holding 60 percent of Gaza’s territory.

In the Israeli-occupied area, all that remains are piles of rubble - the remnants of what were once people's homes. ((This is the only area journalists are allowed to enter with the military.))

This used to be part of Shuja’iyya – a vibrant neighborhood of Gaza City. It is where Somaja al Batniji used to live. 

She was displaced early in the war. More than 30 members of her extended family, including her husband, were killed, she says. Then, last August (August 11), her 14 year- old son was also killed in an Israeli airstrike. 

She says he had been on his way to collect some belongings from his great-grandfather’s house in Shuja’iyya.

03:13  
+++ Somaja al Batniji, ARABIC +++ 
"Losing my son affected me deeply. There is no place I go that I don’t see him in."

She now lives in a tent in central Gaza City, struggling to hold together what remains of her family and life.

03:32
+++ Somaja al Batniji, ARABIC +++ 
"God willing, we hope to return. In every previous war this has made it difficult for us to return to our area. In 2014 we were destroyed, as well as in 2008, and in 2022. In all these wars we were targeted. Our home is closest to the border with the Jews (Israel) and is always targeted, meaning there is destruction in every war."

Like Rania, Somaja fears she may never be able to return home - and that the boundary could harden into a de facto border, cementing Israel’s partial occupation and reshaping Gaza’s territory.

END