For Palestinians reeling from the devastating toll of Israel’s more than 15 month-long war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, their hopes Thursday, the day after a ceasefire deal was announced, were modest:
To return to homes reduced to ruins. To sleep a night without fear. To grieve.
Mohammed Abu Alkas, a 32-year-old marketing manager who now lives in a badly damaged house with 33 other people in the central Gazan city of Nuseirat, expressed mixed feelings about watching people celebrate as the news of the agreement - brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt - was announced Wednesday night.
“Their happiness breaks my heart, because what do we have left?” he said.
If the agreement takes effect as planned Sunday, an initial 42-day ceasefire would bring Gaza’s two million residents some relief from a relentless war that Palestinian health authorities say has killed at least 46,600 people. In exchange, Hamas has agreed to release 33 of the hostages it kidnapped during its October 7, 2023, assault on Israel.
Since that day, vast swaths of Gaza have been razed, entire neighbourhoods wiped from existence. The bombing has been accompanied by the rampaging spread of disease, the 140-square-mile enclave also pushed to the brink of starvation.
Like Abu Alkas, more than 90 percent of those who have survived are displaced from their homes, many of them multiple times, according to the United Nations.
Abu Alkas is still wearing the same pair of pants, now tattered, that he had on when the war began more than a year ago. During that time, he has been displaced three times. He was injured alongside his mother in an airstrike.
On Tuesday, the day before the ceasefire was announced, another missile that hit a neighbouring house sprayed body parts into their building: a leg and parts of a face.
“Until the last moment, death,” he said.
The bombardment continued Thursday even after the announcement of the agreement, which still needs to be ratified by Israel’s government. In the hours since, at least 77 people, including 25 women and 21 children, have been killed in Israeli strikes, according to Mahmoud Bassal, Gaza’s civil defence spokesman. Some residents said they feared the attacks could intensify during the last hours before a truce comes into force.
The Israeli military, in a statement, said it conducted strikes on “approximately 50 terror targets” across Gaza and took “numerous steps” to avoid harming civilians.
During the first stage of the three-phase agreement, in which Israeli hostages held by Hamas would be exchanged for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, internally displaced residents of Gaza are expected to be allowed to return to their homes - or at least what is left of them.
“We want it to end so that we can cry and go place a tent over the rubble of our house,” said Abu Alkas.
Mohammed al-Jamal, who now lives in a 22-square-meter tent with 10 family members in southern Gaza’s Mawasi area, said he also plans to return to his home in the southern city of Rafah at the “zero hour” on Sunday.
He has no idea if it is still standing.
“Even if it is destroyed, I want to return to live in its rubble,” he said.
For now, his family lives with little shelter from the wind and rain, and a worn-out cloth separates him from his neighbours. Mawasi, designated as a humanitarian zone by Israel, has not brought safety from bombing, he said.
“In reality, it is completely unfit for living.”
The deal envisages a surge in aid during the initial ceasefire period, delivered in more than 500 trucks per day, according to the State Department. It is desperately needed.
“The wind and rain hit us. Diseases ate at us without even a single pill,” Jamal said. He described the war as a “nightmare of death and fear that haunts us around-the-clock.”
Just what the future may hold remains deeply uncertain. Negotiations for a second phase of the deal, when the remainder of the hostages would be released in exchange for a complete withdrawal of Israeli troops, are expected to begin in the coming weeks. Plans for reconstruction, and who will run the enclave, remain unclear.
Jamal said he does not want to see a return of Hamas, which he blamed for the destruction of Gaza. He said he hopes for the return of the Palestinian Authority, which administers the West Bank and was violently expelled from the Strip by Hamas nearly two decades ago after losing elections.
“If that is not possible, then let any Arab power rule us,” Jamal said.
Some in Gaza have little faith the ceasefire would hold, or expressed skepticism that it would take effect at all. Khaled Walid, 31, a father of two who is living in the remains of his devastated house in central Deir al-Balah, said he was contemplating leaving Gaza altogether if the crossing with Egypt opens during the pause.
“I want to give my family a new chance at life,” he said. “We lost everything we owned. I want to build a future for my children free of death and killing.”
Abeer Maher, a 36-year-old mother of three displaced from Gaza City to Deir al-Balah, said she thanks God for the ceasefire but cannot feel happiness.
“Now starts the real suffering, and the realization of what has happened. There is nothing left,” she said.
“Only now,” she added, “can I start to have the luxury to mourn my relatives and my friends.”
- Washington Post