In Israel, they are not called refugees: the synonym is “internally displaced people”.

The facts are these:

1. 15,552 displacements (forced to flee), 08 October – 13 October
   According to the head of the Upper Galilee Regional Council, approximately 15,552 people were forced to flee in the Upper Galilee Regional Council due to fear of escalation of hostilities between Hezbollah and Israel between 8 October and 13 October.
2. 80,000 displacements (evacuated), 23 October – 19 November
   According to government, approximately, 80000 people were evacuated from the area bordering Lebanon due to hostilities at the Lebanese/Israeli border between 23 October and 19 November.

While the world rightly concerns itself with the internally displaced people inside Gaza, the lack of notice paid to this other story is strange.

Although these displaced people’s lives may be better than those of the citizens in Hamas-run Gaza, it isn’t much fun. It might be fun to live with your family in a hotel room for a week. It isn’t much fun to do so for months, let alone indefinitely. Furthermore, it is life on hold, with children missing their education.

Brig. Gen. (res.) Yoram Laredo, head of Israel’s National Emergency Management Authority (NEMA), said that the number of evacuees could be close to a quarter of a million and that Israel was grappling with a new challenge: internally displaced people.

Yuli Ben Ami, whose parents, Raz and Ohad, were kidnapped to Gaza, said that she is suffering from severe stress and anxiety over the fate of her parents but is also painfully aware that she can’t stay at the hotel for much longer.

“This is not our home,” said the 27-year-old. “We can’t cook here. We don’t have any of our things. We don’t have anything.”

The eldest of three sisters, Ben Ami recounted how Hamas terrorists and hundreds of non-combatants who followed the terrorists into Israel during the hours-long attack rampaged through her parents’ home, stealing everything of value before setting it on fire.

“They put a bomb in the house and literally exploded our lives,” she said. “The only thing I have left is my community, the kibbutz members. They are around me, helping me all the time.”