After truce, Gazans find nothing—or no one—to return back tohttps://en.majalla.com/node/324028/politics/after-truce-gazans-find-nothing%E2%80%94or-no-one%E2%80%94-return-back
After truce, Gazans find nothing—or no one—to return back to
Palestinians rejoiced when the news broke last week that a ceasefire was finally reached, but many didn't get the chance to celebrate with their loved ones who Israel killed before the deal took hold
Omar AL-QATTAA / AFP
People erect tents amidst the rubble of destroyed buildings as displaced Palestinians return to the northern areas of the Gaza Strip in Jabalia on January 23, 2025, during a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was reached.
After truce, Gazans find nothing—or no one—to return back to
After a relentless 467 days of war on the Gaza Strip, during which Israel’s actions have amounted to genocide, an agreement was finally reached in Qatar for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange. The world breathed a sigh of relief.
Displaced Palestinians, who had sought refuge in southern Gaza, were able to start contemplating their future for the first time in 15 months, returning to their homes and reuniting with family. Almost every Palestinian in Gaza has been displaced by war.
Yet just as these fragile hopes began forming in the three days between the announcement and the ceasefire taking effect, the Israeli military escalated its bombardment of homes in densely populated civilian areas. Hundreds were killed during the expansive ground operations. Some deaths could be confirmed with burials. Others were only assumed, with no clear information. The days, weeks, and months have crawled by for those left not knowing.
'Who will welcome me home now?'
It has been another form of psychological torment for people like Amer Al-Sultan, a photojournalist from Jabalia in northern Gaza, who was forced to flee south nearly a year ago after the Israeli army ordered the evacuation of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in western Gaza City, where Amer and his colleagues had been working.
Far from his family and his mother (his father died when he was young), Amer faced the immense challenge of displacement. The Israeli military had sealed off roads, cutting Gaza in half. Communication between Amer and his family was reduced to sporadic phone calls, which were often disrupted.
Those who longed for my return are no longer here. Who will welcome me home now?
Amer Al-Sultan from Jabalia in northern Gaza
"We would go weeks or even months without being able to communicate due to interruptions in phone and internet services," he said. "I held onto the hope that I would hear from them again, hearing they were safe. I never gave up on the dream of being reunited."
As Israel's military operation ground on relentlessly, he lived in constant fear for his mother's safety. "My mother was my entire life," he said. "She raised us and shaped us into who we are. She's everything to me."
When they announced the ceasefire, Amer's heart filled with joy and hope. That hope was brutally shattered when the Israeli army bombed his family's home in the dead of night, just days after the Doha statement. His mother, brother, wife, children, sister, and her family were all inside. None survived. The house was reduced to rubble.
"It's gone, and so too is everyone who lived in it," he says with profound sorrow. "They talk about us returning. Who is there to welcome me now? Those who longed for my return and wanted to welcome me are no longer here." The ceasefire agreement that had once offered a glimmer of hope now holds little meaning to him.
'I don't know if my brother is alive'
Amer is far from alone. Hundreds of displaced people from northern Gaza experienced similar tragedies. Hussein Abdul Aziz, a resident of Beit Lahia, lost contact with his brother about six weeks ago. His brother had stayed behind in their home with his family while Hussein and his family fled to central Gaza.
"I don't know if my brother was killed or arrested," he said. "I don't even know if he and his family were killed in the house or during their displacement. I need to go back and search for them. I need any evidence of their survival or death."
"Many people lost relatives and were told they had been killed, only to learn later that the Israeli army arrested them and they are still alive in prison. I need to know my brother's fate." Like Hussein, some hope that a relative is in an Israeli jail and not dead. Others simply hope to bid their family farewell by visiting their graves.
Asked about returning home, he said: "I long for my neighbourhood, my house, my relatives, my neighbours. I miss my old life, even if the place is destroyed. I want to work on rebuilding it with whatever means I have."
'There were bodies all around me'
Dima Al-Thawabta is a young Palestinian woman from Gaza who studied law and worked as both a Sharia and civil lawyer before 7 October 2023. She comes from a modest Palestinian family and is the eldest of her siblings.
It felt like a tornado pulling me into the ground. People were screaming. There were bodies all around me.
Dima Al-Thawabta, a young Gazan woman now studying in Tunisia
At the onset of the war, Dima was forced to flee with her mother, younger sisters, and her father's family. He worked as a field journalist. They moved between relatives' homes multiple times before eventually settling in her aunt's apartment in a seven-storey building east of Nuseirat camp in central Gaza.
"Everyone was terrified," she recalled. "I kept trying to reassure them. The shelling was all around us, with fiery explosions everywhere. I was the one my family relied on. I was their source of safety and comfort."
One night in January 2024, she got a call from friends outside Gaza and stepped out onto the balcony to speak with them. As the call ended, she gazed out at the devastation and bombardment. Suddenly, she was caught in what felt like a whirlwind that dragged her downward.
"I didn't understand what was happening," she said. "It felt like a tornado pulling me into the ground. Everything turned into dust and rubble. People were screaming. There were bodies all around me."
Dima was pulled from the rubble by rescuers, put in an ambulance, and taken to Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, where her father was. Upon her arrival, she cried out, begging for her father to be brought to her.
Covered in dust, her clothes torn from the blast, she thought her family were either there or would follow shortly, but her hopes soon faded. The Israeli army had targeted her aunt's seven-story residential building, completely destroying it.
All its residents—including children, women, and the elderly—were still inside when it was bombed. Many of those who died were identifiable only by body parts, brought out after several days under the rubble. Each time a body was recovered, Dima was summoned to the morgue to identify them.
She stayed in her father's tent at the hospital where he worked. As the days passed, Dima learned that she had lost her mother, her sisters, her grandparents, and several members of both her own family and her father's. Dima's eldest daughter survived, as did her father.
Some family members could be buried. Others remained trapped beneath the wreckage. Dima's own home was also completely destroyed in another attack, although it was uninhabited at the time.
The psychological challenges she now faces are immense, made more so by the fact that she had to confront them alone. "I hate seeing the pity in people's eyes," she says. "I hate being treated with sympathy. I had to show that I was strong, but inside, I was completely shattered."
She recalls her last conversation with her mother. "I was sitting, about to go to sleep, when my mother came in and said, 'Dima, if you get the scholarship, travel and continue your education. Don't let the war stop your life.' I was surprised by her words.
"I asked, 'How could I leave and travel without you?' She replied, 'My dear, no one knows what might happen. You need to be strong. Maybe all of us will go, and you'll be left alone.' That's exactly what happened."
Honouring her mother's wish
In March 2024, she was approved to travel through the Rafah border crossing along with her father and daughter.
"Psychologically, I was devastated. My father was even more so. At first, I couldn't interact with society. I had to see a psychologist, but I had to be strong in front of my father so we could carry on and support each other."
Asked about the ceasefire, she says: "My family would ask me, 'Is there a ceasefire, Dima?' Now that there is a ceasefire, who am I supposed to tell? There is no one left from my family who used to ask me."
Dima got a scholarship to study for a Master's degree in public law in Tunisia. She travelled alone to honour her mother's last wish, which was for her to continue her life. She carries the immense hardships of exile and loss while having to adapt to a society that is unfamiliar with her pain and where the language and dialect are different.
"I still have family—uncles and aunts. I didn't want to lose anyone else. I couldn't bear more loss. The announcement of a ceasefire brought me some relief, but then I thought of the rest of my family and the dreams they once had." Some dreamed of travelling. Others just hoped to return home. "The war is over. There is no one left."
She sits alone, she says, imagining her lost loved ones. When she first left Gaza, she was consumed by anger and vowed never to return. But after months spent travelling between Cairo and Tunisia, she came to realise that her identity was inseparably tied to Gaza and its people.
"I'll finish my studies, and the first thing I'll do is return to Gaza," she says. "My place is there, among my people and family. I left broken and grieving, but I'll return with a degree to serve my loved ones and my dearest city—Gaza."