Inside a dim locker room at the Nablus municipal stadium, in the occupied West Bank, the television rarely goes dark, streaming day and night the relentless news from Gaza. Gathered in front of it are a group of men from Khan Younis. For more than two years, they have lived in this stadium converted into a refugee camp, their lives suspended between exile and the war they watched on a screen.

They are mostly construction workers who were in Israel on the morning of 7 October 2023 when Hamas launched its attack. As Israel rounded up Palestinians from Gaza, they fled to the West Bank, where they remain – cut off from wives and children living in makeshift tents inside the strip. With very few exceptions, civilians are not currently allowed in or out of Gaza.

“They killed my nephew and his two children,” says Baker Majjar, 37, who before the conflict split his time between a month in Gaza and a month working on construction sites in Tamra, in north-eastern Israel. “They were seeking food at an aid distribution point near Khan Younis. I’ve lost more than a hundred people – relatives and friends – to Israeli attacks since the war began. Then I stopped counting.”