CAIRO: On the third day of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, many Palestinians weary of fighting in Gaza started to return to the remains of their houses on foot or in rickshaws, stunned by the complete devastation.
After 15 months of fighting, the truce came into force on Sunday when the first three Hamas captives were turned over and 90 Palestinians were released from Israeli prisons.
The Israeli military’s operation to exterminate Hamas has left the coastal enclave in ruins, and now focus is turning to restoring it.
Some Gazans abandoned their destroyed neighborhoods and returned to the tents where they had been sheltering over the past few months since they could not even recognize where they had lived. Others started clearing debris in an attempt to return to the ruins of their houses.
“In order for us to go back home, we are clearing the house and taking out the debris. Palestinian woman Walaa El-Err pointed to her ruined possessions at her bombed-out home in Nuseirat, a decades-old refugee camp in central Gaza, saying, “Those are the quilts, pillows, nothing was left at the house.”
Returning to her neighborhood was a “indescribable” experience, she said. She claimed to have spent the entire Saturday night anticipating the start of the truce the following day. However, the excitement surrounding the ceasefire announcement has subsided.
“I cried when I entered the camp because it was the best and not like that at all. She bemoaned, “All the towers (and) houses were still intact when we left, and none of the neighbors had been killed.”
Abla, a mother of three children, waited for many hours in Gaza City, in the northern part of the enclave, to ensure that the truce held on Sunday before leaving for her house in the area of Tel Al-Hawa, which was destroyed by Israeli ground offensives and shelling.
The seven-story structure had been leveled and “smashed like a piece of biscuit,” making the scene “horrific,” she claimed.
Through a messaging app, she stated, “I was motivated by both doubt and hope that it could have been saved, even though I heard the area was hit hard and the house could have been gone.”
“It is the box of memories, not just a house,” she said, adding that it was where she had her children, celebrated their birthdays, prepared meals for them, and taught them their first words and dances.
UN estimate
Some people moved into destroyed homes or pitched tents next to the debris, unsure of when restoration might start.
According to a United Nations damage assessment published this month, it might take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion to remove the more than 50 million tonnes of debris left behind following Israel’s attack.
To exacerbate the situation, some of the debris is thought to be asbestos-contaminated because the material was used to build some of Gaza’s destroyed refugee camps, which have grown into towns since the 1940s.
According to Gaza health officials, the fighting has claimed at least 47,000 lives, and the remains of thousands more are probably still hidden beneath the debris.
According to a report by the UN Development Programme, the war has caused Gaza’s development to stall for seven decades.
“They (Gazans) can go back home. To term it dwellings is a stretch of the imagination, in my opinion, as they typically find mountains of rubble, especially in the north. Jens Laerke, the spokesperson for the United Nations office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs, stated at a news briefing in Geneva on Tuesday that they require assistance with that.
Searching for bodies
According to the Gaza civil emergency agency, Palestinian rescuers have found at least 150 bodies since the truce went into force as they continue to search for the remains of Gazans buried beneath the debris of their homes and along the sides of the highways.
On social media, horrifying pictures of rotting corpses went viral. Several men dug up the earth at Shejaia cemetery, which had been leveled by Israeli tanks and bulldozers in the preceding months, in an attempt to find their families’ graves.
Atef Jundiya stated in the cemetery in Gaza City, “I have been searching and looking for my father’s grave, my brothers’ grave, and my brothers’ wife’s grave, and I can’t find them.”
Although the truce is a relief, Jundiya stated, “we are still looking for our martyrs and our graves and we are unable to find them.”
Heavy equipment and earth-moving trucks are needed to aid in the evacuation procedure, which officials anticipate taking many months, since the civil emergency service thinks that 10,000 remains are still beneath the debris.