Stranded West Bank stadium where exiles live in limbo

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 is 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 watch on a screen.

- Lorenzo Tondo and Sufian Taha

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 territory. 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 northeastern Israel. "They were seeking food at an aid distribution point near Khan Younis. I lost more than 100 people - relatives and friends - to Israeli attacks since the war began. Then I stopped counting."

Majjar was one of the 18,500 married men in Gaza over the age of 25 who had permission from Israeli authorities to enter the country, mostly to work in agriculture and construction. In the hours after the Hamas attack, Israeli forces began rounding them up. Thousands of these workers were swept up in raids across Israel, imprisoned or deported back to Gaza with their work permits cancelled.