Within days of the ceasefire agreed between Israel and Hamas, thousands of displaced Palestinians are returning to northern Gaza, to their homes or what remains of them, after 15 months of pain, hunger and fear. At the beginning of the armed conflict, many people were forced to leave their homes and go out wearing nothing but what they had on.
During the offensive, about 69% of the total infrastructure in the Gaza Strip was destroyed and set on fire. Now it seems impossible to return to their homes, because they were reduced to rubble, those houses have become uninhabitable. What they had built so hard for years, today is ashes.
To this must be added the thousands of lives that the war took, about 47 thousand Palestinians killed mostly civilians, children, women, elderly people. The sacred land in which they were born and raised is now a graveyard. Many return to search for their dead relatives among the rubble, wanting to give them a holy burial.
According to an analysis carried out by the United Nations Satellite Centre (UNOSAT), it has identified in its register about 60 thousand structures destroyed and another 20 thousand severely damaged. These include housing, hospitals, churches, schools, etc. The greatest damage is believed to be in the northern Gaza and Rafah provinces.
Now many will have to start from scratch, living temporarily in tents, others under the roof of relatives. But there are those who have been hit harder by the war. They have lost everything, their families, their children and their parents; they do not know if it is luck or misfortune to come alive to this moment.
Despite everything, the Palestinians remain in that undeniable spirit of resilience. Trying to protect the last bits of normalcy that are left. They have become survivors. Families united by suffering and hope. They will stand up again, still with the painful memories of how cruel a war can be but with the great challenge of rebuilding their lives, rebuilding their beautiful Palestine.
