Gaza residents woke up to the scale of devastation in their old neighborhoods and Israelis awaited news of three newly freed hostages as a one-day ceasefire between Hamas and Israel continued Monday .
With the war on hiatus for 15 months, Palestinians have returned to the parts of the Gaza Strip they fled, picking their way through vast areas of rubble and trying to salvage what they can – a sofa, a mattress, a chair or a crate –. rubble of their former homes.
“People can barely recognize the destroyed places where they used to live,” said Montaser Bahja, an English teacher, a day after visiting his old neighborhood in Jabaliya, a town in the north of the country.
In a video shared with The New York Times, Mr. Bahja, 50, can be seen rushing through the streets with his son Alhassan, 21, and trying to reconcile the piles of rubble on either side with their memories .
“This is the house of Fahmy Abu Warda; This is Abu Shaaban’s house,” Alhassan is heard saying.
In Israel, which celebrated the return of the first group of hostages released by Hamas under the truce, authorities offered only the broadest description of their conditions. Israel’s Health Ministry and Sheba Medical Center, where the three women are staying in a closed wing with family members, said their main commitment was to protect the former captives’ privacy while they received treatment. medical and psychological.
“I am happy to report that they are in stable condition,” said one of their doctors, Professor Itai Pessach. “It allows us and them to focus on what’s most important right now: reuniting with their families.” »
But the Israelis heard from one of the women on Monday.
“I came back to life,” Emily Damari, 28, said on social media, describing herself as “the happiest person in the world.”
Ms. Damari was one of around 250 people taken hostage during the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023. Around 100 of them are believed to still be in Gaza, and around a third of them are believed to have died. The militants also killed some 1,200 people that day, according to Israel.
Under the terms of the ceasefire, Hamas agreed to release 33 hostages in exchange for the release of more than 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli prisons. The return of the three hostages was followed by the release of 90 prisoners, and the exchanges are to take place once a week during the 42-day truce.
Palestinians in Gaza welcomed the break in fighting. Gaza health officials say more than 47,000 people have been killed in the Israeli assault that began after the 2023 Hamas attack; they do not distinguish between civilians and combatants.
But the scenes that unfolded Monday in the enclave and in Israel embody the bittersweet emotions felt on both sides of the border.
When the truce took effect on Sunday, celebrations replaced explosions and hundreds of trucks carrying aid began arriving in Gaza, where residents have endured a harsh year of hunger and deprivation. In Israel, the repatriated hostages were welcomed into the arms of their jubilant relatives and friends. Fireworks and cheering crowds greeted newly released Palestinian prisoners in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
But the joy was overshadowed by uncertainty. The next round of negotiations between Hamas and Israel is expected to be even more difficult than those that led to the 42-day ceasefire.
The fate of more than 60 other hostages and thousands of other Palestinian prisoners in Israel, not to mention the prospect of a long-term end to the fighting, depends on whether the deal is extended.
“This is a moment of immense hope, fragile but vital,” Tom Fletcher, the UN under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said on social media.
The joy was also dampened by the expectation of prolonged hardship ahead and the knowledge that there is not yet a comprehensive plan for how Gaza will be rebuilt. Many of the region’s two million residents have been displaced at least once.
The task before us is incredibly daunting.
Gaza residents who return to Rafah, in the south of the country, find it largely razed. The mayor said 60 percent of the homes were destroyed, along with 70 percent of the city’s sewer system.
But after 15 months of famine and shortages, food and other vital goods are now flowing into Gaza. More than 630 trucks entered the enclave on the first day of the ceasefire, according to United Nations officials.
During the fighting, far fewer refugees managed to get there – and when they did, it was often too dangerous to get aid to where it was needed. The Israeli military campaign pushed Hamas out without replacing it, creating a power vacuum. As the enclave descended into anarchy, desperate crowds and organized gangs swarmed trucks in the hope of recovering a parcel of food or a bag of flour.
The scenes were not repeated on Sunday and Monday.
“What is very visible is that none of the trucks that entered yesterday were looted,” said Nebal Farsakh, spokesman for the Palestinian Red Crescent, a humanitarian aid organization.
But violence has erupted in the West Bank, where Israeli settlers have attacked Palestinian villages amid anger over the planned release of Palestinian prisoners, some of whom have been convicted of deadly attacks on Israelis, as part of the ceasefire agreement.
In Sinjil, a village south of Nablus, dozens of men, some carrying slingshots, threw stones and burned homes, according to residents and videos verified by The Times.
“People screamed as their homes burned,” said resident Ayed Jafry, 45. Several people were injured, including an 86-year-old man, he said.
In the aftermath of the Hamas attack that sparked the war in Gaza, Israeli leaders vowed to eliminate the militants once and for all. But during the first two days of the ceasefire, Hamas made clear its intention to remain a major force in the territory.
In an interview with The Times, Hamas official Mousa Abu Marzouk suggested that at least some senior members of the group hoped to engage in “dialogue” with the United States, even though the U.S. government has since designated him as terrorist organization. 1997.
Mr Abu Marzouk, based in Qatar, said Hamas was ready to welcome a Trump administration envoy despite the long-standing US policy of supplying arms to Israel and defending it at international institutions.
“He can come to the people and try to understand their feelings and their wishes,” he said of the envoy, “so that the American position can be based on the interests of all parties, and not of one”.
The report was provided by Hiba Yazbek, Natan Odenheimer, Fatima Abdoul KarimAndAfif Amireh.
