Sipping Palestinian tea on the couch in his rented home in Canberra’s suburban sprawl, AA grieves for the life obliterated by Israeli bombs in Gaza – and looks forward to the new one he wants to create with his young family in Australia.

AA – who has asked to be identified only by his initials because his employer, the United Nations Relief Works Agency, has strict policies on political neutrality – escaped Gaza with his wife, S, and their children on December 30, with nothing more than the clothes on their back.