As the ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into force in Gaza at midday local time on Friday, Palestinians are torn between cautious hope and disbelief – while medical charities stress the need for urgent humanitarian aid.
As Israel started pulling back troops from sectors of Gaza City and areas in the south of the Gaza Strip, thousands of displaced Palestinians began the slow and difficult process of returning to what remains of their homes.
“We’re going home and we’re facing a pile of rubble,” Muhanad, displaced from Tal al-Hawa in Gaza City and now living further south in Deir el-Balah, told RFI.
“What remained of our house has been destroyed, so we’re returning to a harsh and exhausting reality.”
The United States has confirmed that Israel has completed the first phase of a pullback laid out in President Donald Trump’s peace plan, but Israeli forces still hold around 53 percent of Palestinian territory.
“The ceasefire stages are only theoretical,” Muhanad said. “They haven’t yet been applied.”
Afnan Hijazzi, also in Deir el-Balah, dared to be more optimistic. “We have so much hope… but even now, it’s still unbelievable,” he said while admitting people were nervous that Israel might not stick to its side of the bargain.
“Our greatest fear is that they’ll break the agreement… that after taking back their prisoners, they’ll simply say ‘goodbye’ to us and carry on as before.”
She said she hoped their houses would be rebuilt “so we can live in peace again rather than in tents – we’re really tired of the war”.
‘MIXED FEELINGS’
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) warned that the humanitarian situation remains critical.
MSF found that one in four children examined this summer was suffering rom malnutrition, and in August the United Nations confirmed a famine in northern Gaza.
Claire San Filippo, MSF’s emergency coordinator, said the situation had slightly improved with “a few fruit and vegetables” seen on the market on Friday “at less exorbitant prices”, but stressed it was by no means enough.
“It is absolutely vital that this ceasefire should be lasting, but also that there should be the possibility of food aid entering Gaza immediately, unconditionally and on a massive scale.”
RFI’s correspondent in Gaza, Rami el Meghari, described talking to one woman on Friday morning who was weary from repeated displacement.
“She was crying. She said, ‘tell the people who are negotiating that they should save what dignity we have left, the dignity that was taken from us with this war’.”
El Meghari stressed that 2 million Gazans “want to get their lives back as soon as possible after their lives have been turned upside down by two years of war”.
Eyad el Amawi, director of a Gaza-based NGO, called the ceasefire announcement a “great moment”, but stressed the ambivalence many Palestinians feel.
“We have mixed feelings between worry, sadness and happiness,” he told RFI, on the line from Ramallah. Despite the ceasefire he said they’d “heard some bombs” and that Israeli forces “had not yet fully withdrawn from all areas of incursion”.
HOPE FOR HOSTAGES
After two years of conflict, the families of Israel’s remaining hostages in Gaza were also hoping the truce would hold and allow for the release of 48 Israeli hostages – living and dead – still being held, out of the 251 abducted during the 7 October attack by Hamas two years ago.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged their release within 72 hours. An international team from the US, Egypt, Qatar and Turkey has been set up to oversee the process.
In Tel Aviv’s Hostages Square on Thursday evening, former hostage Amit Soussana, who suffered sexual abuse while being held by Hamas, addressed the crowd.
“We will not rest until the last hostage comes home. So we must carry on a bit longer and it will be over,” she said. “I feel we’re at the beginning of something new. Just a bit longer, and they’ll be here.”
Families of the deceased were anticipating being able to mourn them. Dan Golan, a relative of Inbar Haiman, the last female hostage and among the 28 dead, held up a photo of her, urging that the remains of those killed not be forgotten.
“We’ve had no news of Inbar since we had confirmation of her death in December 2023,” he said. “She had been killed on 7 October. And that’s our greatest worry, because the authorities said it would be difficult to find all the bodies.”
PRISONER SWAP
Israel, meanwhile, has published the list of the 250 Palestinian prisoners it plans to release – along with 1,700 Gazans it has detained since 7 October.
In the West Bank, a Palestinian man imprisoned for 17 years for his role in the second intifada voiced concern over the fate of those due to be released from Israeli jails, particularly those convicted of violent crimes.
“The mind cannot comprehend what they’re living through, the way they’re humiliated, insulted and beaten inside the prison, especially after 7 October,” he told RFI’s correspondent in Ramallah, on condition of anonymity.
Like many Palestinians, he hopes for the release of Marwan Barghouti, whose presence on the list remains shrouded in mystery. But he doubts that once free Barghouti and other Palestinian figureheads will be allowed to be active in the Palestinian cause.
“The detainees who come out of prison will live in a permanent state of terror, they’ll be targeted 24 hours a day, they won’t be able to move freely,” he said.
According to the Palestinian Prisoners Affairs Commission, numerous detainees released during previous prisoner swaps have been re-arrested.
