The break in fighting brought on by a temporary truce agreement between Israel and Hamas has offered some relief for many in Gaza who have been displaced from their homes during seven weeks of intense Israeli bombardments and battles on the ground in the besieged enclave.
Combat between Israeli troops and Hamas fighters halted Friday, the first day of the four-day truce, for the first time since the Palestinian militant group led a surprise attack on Israel. The attack killed roughly 1,200 people, according to the Israeli government, and Hamas took 240 people hostage.
Israel then declared war on Hamas, which rules Gaza. Israeli military bombardments and a ground invasion have killed more than 14,000 Palestinians, according to the territory’s Hamas-run health ministry. The United Nations says 1.7 million people have been displaced by the hostilities and Israeli orders to evacuate the northern half of the Gaza Strip.
But the pause in hostilities, which allow for Hamas to swap hostages in exchange for Israel releasing Palestinans detained in its prisons, doesn’t mean civilians in Gaza can return to check and see if the homes they fled are still standing.
“What’s the point of a truce if we can’t go back,” said Umm Fawzi Abu Shehadeh, a 59-year-old staying in a tent with her husband and two children. They were forced to leave their home in Rimal, near Gaza City, for Khan Younis in the territory’s south.
She’s distraught that her 80-year-old father-in-law died on Friday and they couldn’t be with him.
“Who will bury him? His kids are here,” she told CBC News freelance journalist Mohamed El Saife.
“It’s unfair what’s happening to us,” she said. “We the people were thrown under the bus. What’s our fault in this?”
Featured VideoSome residents of Gaza expressed cautious optimism and frustration at not being able to return home at a camp for displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis as a truce between Israel and Hamas took effect on Friday. ‘God willing we’re hoping the war ends completely, not just an extension, and we have an exchange of hostages,’ said Amer Obaid, who is from Ezat El Sheikh Radwan. ‘Enough. We’re tired.’
Muhammed Abdel Bari also wishes to go back to his home, in the Jabaliya refugee camp — an area pummeled by airstrikes the Israeli military says were targeting Hamas leaders and infrastructure – even if there’s nothing left standing.
“If my home is destroyed, I’ll pitch a tent over my home, on my land.”
He said he found some solace in the temporary truce and hopes it’s extended even if he can’t return to Jabaliya, which he left with only the clothes on his back.
“It’s good in a sense that we feel hope for the kids. We feel stability,” the 43-year-old said.
The aid that is now being let into the Gaza Strip will make a difference for Bari and others.
By the end of the truce’s first day, 196 trucks of humanitarian aid carried food, water and medical supplies through the Rafah crossing. It was biggest such convoy into Gaza since Hamas’s assault on Israel and Israel’s subsequent bombardment of the territory, the Palestine Red Crescent Society said.
“Instead of suffering for a bag of flour, it will be available,” he said. “As for the water, instead of us never finding [it], we will have it consistently if it is distributed properly.”
Azmi Radwan, a 49-year-old from Gaza City, is hopeful the influx in aid will make the difficult days a little easier.
![A man stands in front of tents.](https://i.cbc.ca/1.7040014.1700875794!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/original_780/azmi-radwan-interviews-at-khan-younis-camp-for-displaced-palestinians.jpg)
He just hopes it’s consistent, he said as he sat by a makeshift stove fashioned out of a barrel with a wood fire inside.
But what he would really like to see is the truce turn into a lasting calm — not just an end to the fighting but promises that Gaza will be rebuilt.
“We were displaced [in] 1948 and in 1967,” Radwan said. “In 2023, we don’t accept [it], even if they erase all our children from the face of the planet, we do not accept under any circumstances being displaced a third time from Gaza.”
Featured VideoCBC’s Hannah Thibedeau discusses Friday’s exchange of Hamas hostages for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons with foreign correspondent Briar Stewart. The exchange is seen as a success and, although only three more days remain in the current agreement between the Israeli government and Hamas, there is hope for an extension of the truce to as many as 10 days. The ‘break in fighting’ has been a relief for Gazans who can move about without fear of bombardment while essential supplies flow into the territory.