We’ve interviewed more than 700 people in Gaza over the past two years. Their stories stayed with us. We kept wondering: Did they find their missing relatives? Are their homes standing? Did they bury their dead? Were they forced to flee again? Were they even still alive? So we tried to find them again. This is what they said.

We Tried to Reach Gazans We Interviewed Over Two Years of War. Here’s What Happened to Them.

No single experience can fully contain the agony of Gaza, the near-obliteration of a society and a place. Collectively, however, the people we spoke to over the past two years have helped us see how the war has crushed those who have lived it. They told us about the raw wounds of their grief, their fear of the next airstrike, their dread of tomorrow. About the first time they fled home as Israeli bombs and shells fell closer, the first time they put up a makeshift tent, the second time, the third. About their weakening bodies, their children crying for bread, their days searching for baby formula and lentils. About their hopes of being evacuated for medical treatment, of going back to school, of reuniting with their families. We tried to get back in touch with many of them. Many did not respond. Some phone numbers no longer worked. Others had escaped Gaza. Some, we learned, had been killed. Of the nearly 100 we reached, everyone lost something or someone: a family member, a friend, their home, hope.

Samar al-Jaja’s nephews, from left, Mahmoud, Mohammed, Ahmed a