Rafah refugees are pouring into our starving, overcrowded city – and we hope they keep coming | Eman Mohamed

Living conditions here are abysmal, but for those escaping the Rafah invasion, it's still a place of salvation

• Eman Mohamed is a maths teacher from Gaza

For more than 200 days, life has been an unimaginable struggle and most Palestinians are barely able to make it. The most basic necessities of life are nearly impossible to come by, and since Israel ordered evacuation of parts of Rafah, an already unlivable situation has become dangerously worse.

My family is now sheltering in Deir al-Balah in central Gaza. We had been living with two other families - 23 people - in an overcrowded house. But then more of our relatives from Rafah were displaced, and the number has now increased to 45. Imagine living in a house with so many people, each trying to make a small ration stretch beyond its limits in an attempt to get some calories for the day. Water, once taken for granted, is a precious commodity. We use seawater to bathe, and many get sick from drinking polluted water.