The ecstatic joy felt by Gazans as they marched back to the northern Strip was quickly replaced by the realization of the scale of destruction, which will take many years to rebuild. Now, some of them are even contemplating returning south
Sheren Falah Saab.F eb 3, 2025
It has been two weeks since the start of the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, and the joy felt by displaced Palestinians returning to northern Gaza has been replaced by a sense of shock and mourning at the scope of destruction they encountered on the streets, in residential neighborhoods and in city centers.
“As days go by, I realize we are left alone,” said Hussein, 38, of Gaza City. “The young folks clear the rubble with their bare hands, but one must face the facts. We will never rebuild Gaza this way,” he said in conversation with Haaretz.
Hussein said that every day returns home with a heavy heart. “It is not just the destruction. I have been hearing from people who have returned to houses in ruin that they are contemplating going back to southern Gaza. They have grown weary of the long waits for water and a bit of pita bread,” he shared.
“Our life now is like nothing we have ever known, and it is even harder than life in the tents, because at least in the tents we still had hope. I don’t know whether anybody has any hope left,” he said.
Hussein’s home was partially destroyed, and together with his parents and some relatives he started to clean up the rooms – those that still have walls and a floor.
“My parents are elderly, and right now it is too difficult to take them back to southern Gaza. I am not sure that they will want to be on the move again,” he said.
“Nobody prepared us for such a war. We have lost our life, not just our home,” a Gazan woman told Palestinian news channel “Yafa”.
She added that great uncertainty now looms over two daughters’ school year – one of whom attended universitybefore the war, while the other was in high school. “How will they pursue their education with everything in ruins? This destruction will last three more generations.”
She pointed out that no one from Hamas offered her any help. “Where are they?” she asked. “They didn’t even provide tents or food stamps, so how will they manage to rebuild Gaza?”
Mohammed, 53, of Gaza City said that several of his fellow Gazans “are quietly cursing Hamas” but are afraid to come out against it in public.
“Life in Gaza has just ground to a halt. This is not a life fit for humans,” he said in conversation with Haaretz. When asked what he felt upon returning home, he went quiet for a few moments, then said he never imagined Gaza City could look the way it does now.
Mohammed’s wife and children escaped Gaza to Egypt early in the war, while he remained behind to look after his parents. “I used to sit here with my wife and children to drink tea and watch the sunset,” Mohammed said of what used to be Gaza’s beachfront, dotted with cafés and hotels. “I am not sure if I want them to see it now,” he said. “The building we used to live in has also been destroyed. Where will they come back to?”
“Inhabitants are mourning their dead children or missing relatives; can we cry about the homes we lost?” asked Aalya, 46, mother of three.
In conversation with Haaretz she shared her morbid feelings about returning to her hometown of Gaza City, saying the atmosphere on the streets is grim, “as if a ghost is hovering over it.”
“We are living in rings of death, but being present when everything around you is in ruins, that’s a different kind of death. This deletes our existence, as if we do not exist. Who will bring back the city we used to have? Our home? The beachfront?”
Gazans bemoan the scope of destruction on social media, too. Sara Awadalla from Rafah in the southern Strip posted a video comparing the view from her balcony before the war with the one after it. The video clearly shows the scope of destruction evident everywhere around her. The houses are in ruins, the park is destroyed and one tent, still standing, is used by displaced people.
Another young woman from the Jabalya refugee camp in northern Gaza showed what remained of her home on an Egyptian news channel. “This used to be the kitchen. Nothing is left,” she said, pointing at destroyed walls a refrigerator standing half open, empty of food. “I am emotionally drained, you cannot live like this,” she said in tears.
Another young man documented his return home in a short video, saying that the neighborhood he grew up in was completely destroyed. “There used to be homes here, families used to live here. It is hard to describe the destruction,” he said. In the background, another young man could be heard crying out in Arabic “Bala Mawa” – without a home, homeless. His cry echoes the zeitgeist of Gaza’s youth, faced with a bleak future.
n addition to the rubble, residents of the neighborhood of Shujaiyeh found “mountains of garbage” awaiting them, as described by a neighborhood resident who documented the many empty food cans that piled up in the neighborhood. “We have had enough. We finished the war, inshallah, and we will begin a new life,” she said.