2023-11-25 00:22:11
Thousands of families of displaced Palestinians, with their few belongings in tow, filled the routes of the southern Gaza Strip on Friday to return to their homes, taking advantage of the beginning of the four-day truce between Israel and Hamas.
The roar of war changed to the horns of cars and the sirens of ambulances trying to make their way through the crowds of displaced people leaving the hospitals, where they had taken refuge.
For the past seven weeks, Israeli bombings have devastated the Palestinian enclave.
These attacks have forced the displacement of 1.7 million of its 2.4 million inhabitants, according to the UN.
With more than half of the buildings damaged or destroyed, according to UN figures, returning Gazans They are not sure of finding their homes.
Palestinian women walk from the north of the Gaza Strip to the south, this Friday. Photo: EFE
First day without bombings
In Khan Younis, in the south of the Palestinian territory, no explosions were heard on Friday morning.
Hayat al Muammar, 50, is among those who want to take advantage of the truce between Israel and Hamas, which will be followed by the release of several hostages kidnapped in Israel in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.
“I’m going home,” this woman, who was taking refuge in a school, told AFP.
“We flee from deaththe destruction, of everything that happens,” he explains.
“I still don’t understand what happened to us, why are they doing this to us?” he adds.
On October 7, Hamas, in power in the Gaza Strip, launched an unprecedented attack on southern Israel. It killed around 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and kidnapped, along with other Palestinian armed groups, around 240 hostages, according to Israeli authorities.
Debris and destruction in Gaza City, following Israeli bombings against Hamas targets. Photo: AFP
Since then, Israel bombs relentlessly the Palestinian territory. Nearly 15,000 people, including thousands of women and children, have died, according to the Hamas government, and more than 70% of residents have had to leave their homes.
“The war did not end”
Ahmed Fayad, 30, returns to his village, a few kilometers from the city, with 70 members of his family, who were surviving in a school, he says, sitting in a cart pulled by a donkey.
An older man walks past him, a bag on his back. He says he feels “confident” to return to his town, near the border with Israel.
Around them, thousands of men, women and children walk, or They go in cars or other precarious transportation, with their boxes, plastic bags and small luggage.
Leaflets dropped by Israeli planes They warn, however, that “the war is not over.”
The Israeli army considers the northern third of the territory, where Gaza City is located, to be a combat zone and orders all civilians to leave the sector. “Returning to the north is prohibited and very dangerous,” the brochures add.
Khaled al Halabi would have wanted “a truce in the north as well.” At the beginning of the war, he left Gaza City for Rafah, in the far south of the territory. Now, he would like to be able to see “his house” of his.
He will not take the northern highway, he assures, but with this truce, “we will finally be able to breathe after 48 days.”
“Products are going to come in, because we no longer find bread, fuel or food,” he says, relieved. At the Rafah terminal, the only border crossing not controlled by Israel, trucks with aid are arriving from Egypt.
According to the agreement reached through the mediation of Qatar, the United States and Egypt, Every day 200 trucks will pass with help.
Raed Saqer, displaced in Rafah, feels optimistic. “We needed these days of truce to be able to care for the sick, so that people can recover a little, because the displaced people in the north are experiencing a tragedy that cannot be described,” he says.
“We hope it is the first stage of a definitive ceasefire,” he says.
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