In Rafah, we sit in flimsy tents as the bombs fall. There is no escape: we can only wait for the worst | Bahzad Al-Akhras

I work in mental health, but nothing could have prepared me for this feeling of mass hopelessness - frozen in place, seeing no way out

I'm a doctor and psychiatrist, and before the war in Gaza, my days followed a reliable routine. I would go to work in the clinic, visit my friends and spend time with my family. I lived a normal life. Now, my family and I are refugees in Rafah, after the Israeli army ordered us to leave our home in Khan Younis. We are living in the worst conditions imaginable. We spend our days waiting. We wait in queues for two or three gallons of drinkable water, or for food or plain flour to make bread over a fire, after months without electricity.

In the last few days, as we heard that Israel was preparing for a ground invasion in Rafah, we knew that there was nowhere else for us to go. Israel claims it will evacuate civilians, but how can we believe that when there seems to be no plan and we have repeatedly seen what they have done before? All we can do - all 1.4 million of us - is wait for the worst. Life feels like one eternal, never-ending day. It is filled with suffering and scenes of horror that you see so often, they begin to blend together. It is our collective new routine to hear, witness, sit with, and walk beside death. Death felt closer than ever when the Israeli military launched extensive airstrikes overnight on 12 February.