Sign up for our breaking news emails to receive instant, free alerts sent straight to your inbox.
Sign up for our free breaking news emails
Sign up for our free breaking news emails
Even before a cease-fire agreement between Israel and Hamas was fully implemented on Sunday, Palestinians in the war-torn Gaza Strip began returning to the remains of homes they evacuated during the 15-month war.
Majdeh Abu Jarad quickly packed up the contents of her family’s tent in the sprawling tent city of Mawassi, just north of the strip’s southern border with Egypt.
At the start of the war, they were forced to flee their home in the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun, where they would gather around the kitchen table or on the rooftop on summer evenings amid the scent of roses and jasmine.
The house is devoid of those happy memories, and for the past year, Abu Jarad, her husband and six daughters have walked the length of the Gaza Strip following one evacuation order after another by the Israeli army.
Seven times they ran away, he said, and each time their lives became more unrecognizable as they crowded with strangers to sleep in school classrooms, seek water in a large tent camp or sleep on the streets.
Now the family is preparing to begin the journey home – or what’s left of it – to join relatives who remain in the north.
“As soon as they said the ceasefire would start on Sunday, we started packing our bags and deciding what to take, despite the fact that we were still living in tents,” Abu Jarad said.
The war in Gaza began when Hamas-led militias attacked southern Israel on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and abducting about 250. About 100 hostages are still inside Gaza, at least a third of whom have been killed.
According to Gaza’s health ministry, which did not specify the number, Israeli strikes have killed more than 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza, more than half of them women and children. According to this report, more than 110,000 Palestinians have been injured. The Israeli army says it has killed more than 17,000 militants without providing evidence.
Israeli bombardment has flattened large parts of Gaza and displaced 1.9 million of its 2.3 million residents.
Even before the ceasefire was officially implemented – and as tank shelling continued throughout the night and morning – many Palestinians made their way through the rubble to their homes, some on foot and others carrying their belongings. They carried donkey carts.
“They go back under the rubble to bring back their loved ones,” said Mohammad Mahdi, a displaced Palestinian father of two. A few months ago, he was forced to leave his three-story house in the Zeyton neighborhood in the southeast of Gaza City.
Mehdi managed to reach his home in the middle of the rubble from West Gaza on Sunday morning. On the road, he said he saw Hamas-controlled police forces stationed in the streets of Gaza City, helping people return to their homes.
Despite the sheer scale of the destruction and the uncertain prospects for rebuilding, “people celebrated,” he said. They are happy. They started cleaning the streets and removing debris from their houses. This is the moment they have been waiting for for 15 months.”
Umm Saber, a 48-year-old widow and mother of six children, returned to her hometown, Beit Lahiya. Due to safety concerns, she only asked for the honor meaning “Mother Saber”.
Speaking by phone, he said his family found the bodies in the street, some of which appeared to have been lying in the open for weeks.
He said that when they reached Beit Lahia, they turned their house and much of the surrounding area into ruins. Some families immediately began digging through the rubble to search for their missing loved ones. Others started clearing areas where they could set up tents.
Umm Saber said he also noticed that the district’s Kamal Adwan Hospital was “completely destroyed”.
“It’s not a hospital at all anymore,” he said. They destroyed everything.”
The hospital has been attacked repeatedly over the past three months by Israeli forces, who have been largely isolated in northern Gaza and have been attacking Hamas fighters who they say have regrouped.
The army has claimed that Hamas militants are operating inside Kamal Adwan, which the hospital authorities have denied.
The families’ return comes amid uncertainty over whether the ceasefire agreement will bring more than a temporary halt to the fighting, who will rule the besieged region and how it will be rebuilt.
The United Nations has said that if Gaza remains under Israeli siege, reconstruction could take more than 350 years. Using satellite data, the United Nations estimated last month that 69 percent of Gaza’s structures had been damaged or destroyed, including more than 245,000 homes. With more than 100 trucks working full time, it takes more than 15 years to remove the debris.
But for many families, the immediate relief overwhelmed the fear of the future.
Abu Jarad said: “We stay in the tent, but the difference is that the bleeding stops, the fear stops and we sleep peacefully.”
