Go home, bury their dead or make bread: What Gazans would do during a truce

Pause in the fighting would come after almost 50 days of relentless strikes and shelling

An injured Palestinian man sits near a blackboard at a school being used as a shelter from Israeli bombardment in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, on November 22. AFP

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Displaced by Israel's war in Gaza, 60-year-old Nafes Khamis has been desperately waiting for a pause in fighting to check if his house is still standing and to rest in his bed after weeks of sleeping on a floor.

Almost 50 days into a war that has reduced hundreds of Palestinian homes to rubble, his wish may become a reality as Israel and Hamas agree to a temporary truce that could lead to a lull in the fighting from Friday morning.

Like many others in the ravaged Gaza Strip who were forced out of their homes and are now living in schools, tents, and hospitals, the first thing that Mr Khamis will do during the four-day pause is try to reach his home, hoping that it has not been destroyed.

Others have different plans: to see surviving relatives or hold proper burials for those who were killed by the relentless Israeli strikes and placed in temporary mass graves in backyards and farmlands or who are still in body bags at hospital doors.

“We are sleeping on floors. I'm 60 years old and have never slept on cold floors before,” Mr Khamis told The National at a school housing displaced families in south Gaza on Thursday.

“We are all sick because we sleep on the floor with no mattresses or blankets like dogs. I want a truce that will let me return to my home. I want this war to end and to go home.”

On Thursday, Gaza was on tenterhooks as it waited for the hostage deal that has been beset by delays amid fears the fragile arrangement might fall through at the last minute.

Hatem Abu Daqqa, 48, was wide awake all night, waiting for the morning to go back to his home in the town of Abasan Al Kabira, east of Khan Younis.

He had been separated from his family, who were divided between his sister and cousins' apartments, and has decided to reunite with them during the temporary truce at his home near the border with Israel.

“The ceasefire is a lifeline for us and others like us. A few days will give us energy to face what is yet to come,” he said. “We are living in an unbearable hell and in a tragedy we only hear about in history books.”

Under the deal, the militant group Hamas will exchange 50 hostages it abducted from southern Israel on October 7 for up to 150 female and child Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

There were widespread reports that the agreement would be activated at 10am Israel time on Thursday, ushering in a four-day cessation of hostilities and beginning the process of swapping captives and letting in much-needed humanitarian aid for Gazans.

That hope was dashed after Israel's national security adviser said no Hamas hostages would be released before Friday. On Thursday evening, Qatar announced that the truce would begin at 7am Friday and that the first batch of hostages would be released at 4pm.

“We want this truce to happen just to go back home. This is all we want,” said a mother sheltering with her kids in the same school as Mr Khamis.

“This is miserable. My children and I have been doing nothing apart from walking from place to place. We are a family of 12,” she added.

Israel has unleashed an intense campaign on Gaza since October 7 when Hamas launched its assault on southern Israel that led to the deaths of 1,200 Israelis and about 240 being taken hostage.

More than 14,000 Gazans have been killed since the war began, according to Gaza's health ministry, while more than 1.5 million of the 2.3 million residents have been displaced, the United Nations says.

At the beginning of its ground invasion earlier this month, the Israeli military said that it had divided the Gaza Strip into two.

“Today, there is north Gaza and south Gaza,” an Israeli army spokesperson said.

The goal was to fight Hamas in the north after pushing residents to flee south. Many of those who were displaced now fear that even during the truce, they won't be able to go back north to see their houses.

“It was a chance to go back to assess our home, street, and neighbourhood, but those forcefully displaced to the south are not allowed to go back up north,” said Salma Al Awad, who is sheltering at another school.

Rafiq al Madhoul, a displaced father from Gaza city, said he had been waiting for the temporary truce and questioning whether he could ever go back to the north, and whether “the occupation forces will eventually retreat from Gaza, from the north”. But, he added, he knew the answer.

Now he says his plan has changed.

“The first thing I will do once the pause comes into effect is wait for the announcements of allowances and aid and get a bag of flour to make our own bread, rather than stand in long queues fighting for a piece.”

This article was published in collaboration with Egab.