‘I expect to find a ghost city’: Gaza residents on the long, arduous journey back home

As Abdel Fattah al-Kurdi made the long journey back to Gaza City, he found himself getting lost. Though he left the city just a few weeks ago, he could no longerrecognise its streets. The buildings he had grown up in between had collapsed, their contents carpeting the roads in a mixture of torn furniture and broken concrete. Al-Kurdi could only recognise the Netzarim checkpoint marking his entry into north Gaza by the bodies lying at its feet – those who had tried to return home too early, their faces obscured by dust after being cut down by Israeli fire. “The city looks completely different, as if it is no longer the Gaza we once knew. In just a short time, massive destruction has spread everywhere. Almost all of the houses are destroyed, the streets blocked,” said al-Kurdi, a 40-year-old resident of Gaza City, as he returned to his home in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood. Al-Kurdi was one of the thousands of people of Gaza who took advantage of the ceasefire announced on Friday to travel back to their homes in northern Gaza. Videos showed a coastal highway clogged with crowds , many on foot, making their way northwards. For the first time since a previous ceasefire had collapsed in mid-March, fighting had stopped in Gaza. Hamas and Israel had agreed to stop fighting to prepare for the release of 48 Israeli hostages held in Gaza and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners in an agreement that is meant to lead to a complete end to the two-year war. Like most people of north Gaza, Al-Kurdi was filled with anxiety as he walked north. In the days leading up to the ceasefire, Israel had been intensely bombing Gaza City as part of its campaign to occupy the city. Al-Kurdi had no idea if his home was among the lucky few that was still standing. “I expect to find a ghost city. Some neighbours went ahead of me and told me the situation in the neighbourhood is catastrophic. They said my house was badly damaged by drone strikes, but is still standing,” he said. Even if his house was uninhabitable, he hoped to at least salvage some of his belongings. The journey north was not easy, as transportation was overwhelmed by the hundreds of thousands of people who wanted to return home. Those who headed north described walking for hours with Israeli drones flying overhead, and hearing explosions in the distance. “I slept in the street for two days waiting for permission to pass through the [Netzarim] checkpoint and return home. There were no vehicles available so I hung on to the back of my neighbour’s car for three hours until we arrived safely,” said Ahmad Salem, a 30-year-old from al-Jabalia in northern Gaza. Though a ceasefire was in effect, Israeli troops were still present in about half of the Gaza Strip. Approaching them could spell death, an Israeli military spokesperson said shortly after the ceasefire was announced, specifying specific areas that were still off limits. Despite her home town of Beit Lahia being one of the areas that the Israeli army said was still forbidden to enter, Asmaa Zuheir decided to make the journey back anyway. Even if she could not reach her home, she was hoping to at least catch a glimpse of her neighbourhood from afar. “I managed to reach the outskirts of Beit Lahia but could not move toward the centre because of the danger still present. Drones started firing at anyone who advanced toward the city,” said Zuheir, a 34-year-old nurse. From her vantage point on the outskirts of Beit Lahia, she could only see bare earth; the entire area had been flattened by bulldozers. “I saw no landmarks. The entire area had been levelled to the ground. There was not even rubble left from the houses,” said Zuheir. Interactive Zuheir did not dare stay too long, leaving as the crowds of people began to thin. Though she had not managed to reach her home, she began to walk back, stopping along the way to collect some tree branches to make a fire to keep warm once night fell. Salem had managed to reach his home, only to find that it no longer existed. He added his home to the long list of things he had lost over the last two years, unimportant compared to the loss of his brother. Still, despite losing his house, Salem still felt he had returned home. “Here in the north, despite all the devastation, I feel more at peace than in the south, because I am back where I belong, to my memories, my neighbourhood, my neighbours, and my home, even if it is destroyed,” he said. It is unclear how long the ceasefire in Gaza will last. The head of Hamas’s negotiating team, Khalil al-Hayya, said in a video address on Thursday that he had received guarantees from the US and other international powers that the ceasefire will hold. But negotiators still had to agree on thorny issues such as the disarmament of Hamas and the makeup of a governing body for Hamas. Residents of Gaza had been here before – a ceasefire had ended in mid-March when Israel unilaterally decided to resume fighting – and so were eager to return home while they still could. Despite the destruction they found upon their return, many hoped that the days ahead held a respite from the brutality of the past two years. Amid the mounds of rubble, small scenes of joy still unfolded. “On the road, I saw someone returning. When he saw his house still standing from a distance, he began to run and shout with joy,” said Zuheir. “At that moment, I felt pain because I was returning to my area knowing my house was already completely destroyed.” “People here, when they see any trace of their house, feel great hope and joy, as if it had never been damaged. All they want is a small piece of their memories from the house they once lived in,” she added.