CAIRO: As the harsh reality of uninhabitable, bombed-out homes and severe shortages of basic goods settles in, the happiness of thousands of Palestinian families who returned home to north Gaza following a ceasefire with Israel is giving way to despair.
Many people have started to complain about the shortage of running water, which makes them wait hours to fill plastic containers for cleaning or drinking. Returnees have gathered whatever usable objects they can from their land to build improvised tents, as most homes are now little more than piles of debris.
Residential areas devastated by Israeli shelling and airstrikes are left in complete darkness at night due to a shortage of fuel for backup generators and electricity.
Nothing exists, including life, water, food, drink, and necessities of life. Life is really, really difficult. Standing among the remains of his multi-story home in the largest and most heavily populated of the eight ancient refugee camps in the Gaza Strip, Hisham El-Err said on Wednesday that there is no Jabalia camp.
Two Palestinians are killed by Israeli soldiers in the occupied West Bank, and Egypt declines to participate in the forceful evacuation of Gaza.
His extended family is currently sheltering in tents, which provide little defense against the midwinter cold in Gaza.
The majority of the 650,000 people who had been forced from the north by the conflict had returned to Gaza City and the northern border of the enclave by late Tuesday, according to Hamas officials, from places to the south where fighting was less severe and devastating.
Many of those returning had hiked 20km or more along the coastal route, and were frequently burdened with what personal belongings they still had after months of being moved around as battlegrounds changed.
After returning to Jabalia with his family from the Al Mawasi neighborhood in south Gaza, Fahad Abu Jalhoum was compelled to head back south due to the extent of the devastation they discovered.
Abu Jalhoum stated in Al Mawasi, “It’s just ghosts without souls (in the north).” We all missed the north, but I was astounded when I visited. So, until God provides us with comfort, I went back to the south.
According to a Hamas official speaking on condition of anonymity, less fuel, cooking gas, and tents than had been agreed upon in truce talks had been brought into Gaza.
The Hamas official stated that since the agreement went into force on January 19, just about 2,000 tents had been delivered, compared to the initial 135,000 needed by the Gaza government media office.
He added that the truce might be impacted by militant groups’ discontent and that efforts to restore bakeries and hospitals that had been destroyed by the fighting had not yet started. He encouraged mediators to make sure additional help enters the area.
The agreement calls for the release of hundreds of Palestinian inmates, many of whom are serving life sentences in Israel, in exchange for 33 Israeli captives detained by Palestinians in Gaza during the first six weeks of the ceasefire.
To date, 290 Palestinian detainees and seven Israeli inmates have been traded. Hamas and its smaller ally Islamic Jihad have decided to exchange three more Israeli inmates for tens of Palestinian captives on Thursday.
Egypt will not be involved in the displacement.
Following US President Donald Trump’s proposal to relocate Palestinians from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan, Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi declared on Wednesday that the forced relocation of Gazans is a “injustice that we cannot take part in.”
At a news conference with Kenyan President William Ruto in Cairo, Sisi stated, “We cannot participate in the injustice of the deportation and displacement of the Palestinian people from their land.”
Egypt’s historic stance on the Palestinian cause “can never be compromised,” according to Sisi.
According to him, Egypt was “determined to work with President Trump, who seeks to achieve the desired peace based on the two-state solution” and supported “the establishment of a Palestinian state.”
Two Palestinians are killed by Israel in the WB.
The Palestinian health ministry reported on Wednesday that Israeli soldiers had killed two Palestinians in separate overnight operations in the occupied West Bank, including one in Jenin.
An Israeli airstrike killed a 25-year-old man in Jenin late Tuesday, the ministry claimed in a statement, identifying him as Osama Abu al-Hija.
The ministry reported that Israeli soldiers had killed a 23-year-old Palestinian man it named as Ayman Naji in the northern city of Tulkarem just after midnight on Wednesday.