In Gaza, Palestinians feel forgotten as Iran war captures attention and ceasefire progress slows

Burning scraps of plastic and cardboard in a large tin can outside his family's tent in a southern Gaza graveyard, Raed Abu Ouda prepares a meal for his children, remembering a time when they didn't have to live this way."We used to live in palaces, but now we live in graves," Abu Ouda, 42, who said he was injured in February when a shell struck his home despite the ongoing ceasefire, told NBC News this week.

Burning scraps of plastic and cardboard in a large tin can outside his family's tent in a southern Gaza graveyard, Raed Abu Ouda prepares a meal for his children, remembering a time when they didn't have to live this way.

"We used to live in palaces, but now we live in graves," Abu Ouda, 42, who said he was injured in February when a shell struck his home despite the ongoing ceasefire, told NBC News this week. His family's tent is one of several built in an area used as a cemetery outside the Jordanian field hospital in Khan Younis.

The graveyard, he said, was the best shelter his family could find, with thousands of Palestinians still blocked from returning to their homes, or at least what's left of them, because they sit behind the "yellow line" — a boundary delineating territory still occupied by Israeli forces, comprising roughly half of Gaza.

Raed Abu Ouda outside his family's tent, with his wife and daughter inside. NBC News"We have become people living in unnatural conditions," said Abu Ouda, who lost his work as a farmer after the conflict in Gaza began. Describing the daily struggle to get food, water and the most basic supplies for survival in the Palestinian enclave, five months into the current ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, he questioned how he was supposed to support his family of seven, including his youngest child, 1-year-old Arwa.

"I can't even provide a single jerrycan of water for them," he said.