'No home left' for Gazans stranded in West Bank

Under the bleachers of a West Bank stadium, a dozen men from Gaza live in a former changing room, blocked from returning home by the war that erupted more than two-and-a-half years ago. Among those stranded is Sameer Abu Salah, 54, who had been working odd jobs in Israel’s commercial hub of Tel Aviv, where wages are far higher than in his home city of Khan Yunis in Gaza. He had then gone to Nablus, in the north of the occupied West Bank, where he is now trapped. “I entered (Israel) only four days before the war,” he said from the little space he had set up under the stands of Nablus city stadium. “I was respected and honoured. Then the war happened,” he added, referring to Israel’s relentless military campaign in the Palestinian enclave following Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. Abu Salah now makes a living collecting and reselling recyclables, sending money to his family after losing two sons to Israeli airstrikes. A Palestinian man sits inside a damaged building, a day after of an Israeli strike at the Shati refugee camp (Beach) in Gaza City, on May 9, 2026. —AFP “Look at me now — I live in a tent. We used to live with dignity, while here we’ve been thrown aside like dogs,” he said. Abu Salah, who is “obsessed with cleanliness”, has made the most of his situation: he fashioned a dresser out of cardboard boxes and decorated his walls with Palestinian flags and a portrait of historic Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat he found during his street sweeps. Counting all those stranded is difficult, but the Palestinian Authority’s labour ministry said in March it had provided cash assistance to 4,605 Gazans stuck in the West Bank. Though leaving the city’s boundaries is tolerated, the men under the bleachers still fear it, citing friends who were stopped at an Israeli army checkpoint and sent back to Gaza. ‘In a jail’ “It’s boring, but what can we do? We’re in a jail,” said Sameh, who came 10 days before the conflict erupted to get medical treatment for his son that was unav