4 hours ago
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When the ceasefire came, there was a moment of relief that we had escaped death, although we still carry the sadness and pain of everything lost in those 15 months.
Palestinians know that there are still more battles ahead, they have to keep fighting, in a war of daily suffering – the fight for water, for a loaf of bread – and a war against memories, that bring pain to the heart and madness to the mind.
Still, I woke up full of energy and excitement on Sunday, the day we had been told we could begin returning to the north. I knew the journey would be exhausting, walking long distances on broken roads crowded with other displaced people, but I was eager to return to my beloved home.
I followed the news minute by minute, waiting for the announcement that the crossing would open. Instead, we got news that it would not happen.
I went to bed that day thinking about all the people who went to the checkpoint early Saturday night so they could be the first to return. Many had sold their tents to afford the journey back, or even burned their tents out of excitement they were finally leaving behind life in those camps.
So they had no shelter that night, and slept in the freezing cold, waiting anxiously for the next morning, hoping their dreams would not be crushed again.
When the announcement came on Monday that the road was open, I felt I could have flown away with joy. We got dressed, packed our bags, and drove as close to the checkpoint as we could get.
As we approached on foot, we were drawn into a crowd so big it felt like an endless river of human beings. If you looked back or forward, you could see only the same torrent of people trudging north. We would walk for 11 hours, covering 15 kilometres.
Everyone was very tired, and weighed down with the few possessions they had saved from the war, but the passion to return drove them forward. Our longing to see our homes, even if they were destroyed, was stronger than our exhaustion, and kept our tired legs moving.
Clouds of dust stamped up by the passing crowds covered our faces, settling on every strand of hair, turning my eyelashes from black to grey. It felt almost comic, but around me there were so many heartbreaking scenes.
Men with children on their shoulders struggled to carry or drag heavy belongings that were all they had saved from the war. Old people in wheelchairs jolted painfully for miles over the ruts of a destroyed road. Others who needed support but no longer had it collapsed in the middle of the road.
I saw one man weeping over the body of his elderly father, who had insisted on trying to return despite poor health. The journey killed him. Elsewhere, children who had been separated from families in the crush cried for their parents, while a father searched frantically for his son.
As we approached Gaza City, Rashid Street was so full of people trying to return that the crowd seemed to have filled it and then come to a stop. So we turned off towards the beach where we used to go to relax, walking on the solid sand near the water with hundreds of other people.
The beach was clean and beautiful, so we took breaks every now and then. In the late afternoon, we ate cucumber, cheese bread and avocado that our mother had packed, looking at the sea. Our water had run out some time earlier.
After finishing the meal, we continued our journey, finally reaching Gaza City, where big crowds of people had gathered to wait for their loved ones.
The sun was setting, and its reflected light turned the sad, ruined buildings orange. It was strangely beautiful, converting Gaza into a piece of art that only the people who lived there could appreciate.
We hoped to find a car to drive us the final stretch of the journey, but the few on the streets were already full, or the drivers were waiting for their own families.
So we carried on walking through Gaza’s Rimal neighbourhood, which used to be a fancy enclave for the city’s rich. Now it was a ghost town, with an army of displaced people grey with dust tramping through its streets in exhausted silence.
We kept looking for a car, but it was a hopeless search. The only one that stopped asked 30 times the usual fare, more than we could afford. So we kept walking.
We reached our home town, Beit Lahia, in the farthest north, when night had already fallen. My feet and shoulders ached, and even in the darkness I saw glimpses of the destruction all around, but despite everything I was incredibly happy.
We headed straight to my maternal grandfather’s house, which was still standing, although it was damaged and coated in dust and graffiti from Israeli soldiers. There were empty boxes of ammunition and bullets everywhere. We watch our steps when moving around, as unexploded bombs are a big worry for everyone here.
When we woke the next day we went for a walk, and although I have been covering Israeli attacks for months, the scale of the destruction was overwhelming.
People were searching through the rubble of their homes, looking for clothes, photographs or other scraps of memories of their lives before the war, tools and utensils that may still be usable.
I ran into friends and neighbours who I had not seen since the start of the war. All around there were families embracing, the hugs and kisses of longed-for reunions.
We decided to visit our own home for the first time since the war started. I grew up in this area but it had been so devastated, buildings and streets and gardens bombed and demolished, that we could no longer find our way to the house. We were wandering lost and confused, when a neighbour appeared and guided us.
The only things still standing were the trunks of a walnut tree, and some olive trees that used to be in our yard. Seeing them there, surrounded only by rubble, I felt like I had been stabbed in my heart.
Our home was a three-storey building, and the levels had collapsed on top of each other like layers in a cake. I walked around and over the ruins to see if there was a way in, to recover anything from our life. It was dangerous but our memories deserve it.
I couldn’t find even the smallest hole. Nothing had survived. My memories, my family’s memories and everything we owned have all been crushed and buried.
