With a fragile Israel-Hamas ceasefire hanging by a thread, Palestinians in Gaza are scrambling for certainty and survival.
Even as residents returning to bombed-out communities struggled to clear space for their tents amid the rubble, a war of words between Hamas and Israel continued Tuesday over the second phase of a ceasefire that had been due to begin Sunday.
The Israeli government is refusing to implement a previously agreed-upon second phase of the ceasefire, which entails a long-term cessation of hostilities. Instead, it is pushing for a new ceasefire deal that immediately releases all or most of the Israeli hostages, which Hamas rejects.
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The first phase of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, now expired, allowed Palestinian residents to return to communities in Gaza’s devastated north. But before they can even begin to pick up the pieces of their lives, the peace framework is shaking.
Israel is also refusing to withdraw its military from what is known as the Philadelphi Corridor, Gaza’s border with Egypt, as it was scheduled to do Saturday under the ceasefire terms.
Hamas released a propaganda video of Israeli hostage Eitan Horn, while Israel increased the number of drones and fighter jets flying over Gaza, carrying out an airstrike that killed two Palestinians Monday.
As the two sides hardened their bargaining positions, Israel shut off all food and other aid entering the strip Sunday, saying its obligations expired with the end of the first ceasefire stage. That piled another challenge onto impoverished Gazans who were already struggling to rebuild their lives and shelter.
The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) warned Sunday that the suspension of humanitarian aid to Gaza “will lead to more suffering.”
“The uncertainty over the ceasefire threatens humanitarian access, with aid deliveries halted and civilians once again deprived of food, water, and medical assistance,” the NRC said in a statement.
Germany’s Foreign Ministry on Monday urged Israel to lift the aid ban, describing it as “not a legitimate means of pressure in negotiations,” while UNICEF warned “the ceasefire must hold and more aid must be allowed in to prevent further suffering and loss of life.”
In north Gaza, little to salvage
Even if the fighting has stopped – for now – the battle to survive in the wreckage of northern Gaza is only just beginning.
When Naim Khader al-Saidi, a former marble and tile layer, returned to the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza in late January, he was unprepared for the destruction – a restoration job even he could not attempt.
“I knew I was returning to a destroyed place, but I had hoped for something salvageable,” he says.
Mr. Saidi has begun to clear the rubble that was once his home, and pitched a tent he bought from someone who received it as aid.
“It’s as if an earthquake hit Jabalia,” he says, surveying his rubble-strewn block. “This isn’t just war; it’s the annihilation of our homes, our trees, our people.”
Even prior to Israel’s blocking of aid into Gaza Sunday, food and water were in short supply. There is no electricity.
Aid groups deliver water trucks every two days, but the supply is insufficient.
“There’s no water,” Mr. Saidi says. “We ration everything.”
Since returning to Jabalia in early February, Adla al-Mabhouh, 63, and her grandchildren have lived in a tent on the rubble where their house once stood – and where her husband died. It took her son and grandchildren days of shoveling to clear out space to place two tents side by side.
“My husband was killed right here in this place,” she recalls of the airstrike that mortally wounded her spouse, her voice heavy with sorrow.
Khitam Okasha, whose home in Jabalia was destroyed, has chosen to live in the home of her husband’s grandparents, which is miraculously intact.
“I’m lucky to have walls around me,” Ms. Okasha reflects, “but once I step outside, despair washes over me. All I see are gray, destroyed homes,” and a reminder of her dead uncles and cousins.
Nowhere to put so much rubble
In Jabalia, as in much of northern Gaza, life is a nonstop cycle of shoveling and piling debris, so as to clear a space in which to live. Lacking heavy equipment and designated rubble dumps, most people pile it high on traffic medians and roundabouts in the middle of the street.
“Walking in Jabalia, there is a symphony of people removing the rubble and throwing it outside,” says Mr. Saidi. Despite the tireless efforts of residents to clear the destruction, he notes, “You cannot see any change. There is still so much rubble and destruction.”
The United Nations estimates that there are around 51 million tons of rubble blanketing the Gaza Strip, where bustling neighborhoods once thrived. Over 60% of homes and 65% of roads have been destroyed by Israel’s military offensive, the UN says.
As families return to the rubble of their former homes, a pressing question looms: What happens next?
There is still no clear plan for the removal of the debris from destroyed homes; heavy equipment such as bulldozers are not allowed to enter the strip.
Israel has limited the number of temporary prefab shelters allowed into Gaza, and reconstruction is an issue that was to be negotiated in the second and third phases of a ceasefire agreement that may no longer be honored.
“It is easier to navigate the Himalayas than the streets of Jabalia refugee camp,” says Mohammad Badir, an aid worker who distributes food and water to residents. “I got so many bruises while navigating the camp over the rubble.”
More human remains
And then there is the presence of the hundreds of dead, deep beneath the rubble, whose bodies were never retrieved.
Upon his return in late January, Mr. Saidi retrieved two bodies of relatives killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home and buried them. To this day, you can hear an army of rats scurrying and scratching beneath the broken concrete.
“If a person’s body remains under the rubble, the rats and dogs will eat him. Where is the dignity of the human being? There is no dignity for anyone here,” alive or dead, he says.
And with the potential breakdown of the ceasefire, fear has returned.
“I am afraid that the war is coming back,” says Ms. Mabhouh, the grandmother.
Ms. Okasha agrees.
“The war has never left. Its impact is still here,” she says. “I cannot imagine [what will happen] if the fighting returns.”
