🔗 Share this article

During the dawn of Thursday, people witnessed little joy in Gaza. The news of the pending peace agreement had traveled swiftly throughout the war-torn region throughout the evening, with a few gunshots discharged heavenward in celebration, yet with the arrival of dawn the mood was to tense anticipation.

“Everyone is still afraid,” stated a young woman in her twenties in al-Mawasi, the squalid, overcrowded coastal strip where numerous families has sought shelter within provisional structures and plastic shacks.

“We look forward to a public statement coupled with tangible promises for opening the crossings, enabling sustenance supplies, and ceasing the bloodshed, destruction and displacement.”

In the vicinity, an elderly resident Abbas Hassouna explained that his household were anticipating a verified communication and dependable pledges to open the transit routes, facilitating nourishment delivery, and ending the fatalities, destruction and displacement”.

“When we see these things happen, then we can genuinely trust them. Yet at this moment, apprehension persists. Authorities may withdraw suddenly or violate the accord as before stranding us within the perpetual loop with nothing changing only additional hardship,” Hassouna expressed, originally from Gaza’s northern sector but has been displaced repeatedly.

Mixed Emotions Within Residents

Ola al-Nazli, 47 explained she heard of the ceasefire through her neighbors within the al-Mawasi district. “I felt confused regarding my reaction, about feeling joyful or sad. We’ve encountered similar situations many times before, and on each occasion we were disappointed again, consequently this occasion fear and caution have intensified,” Nazli stated, who had to abandon her home in Gaza City due to the latest military operations in that area.

“Everyone lives in temporary shelters which offer little protection from the cold or during shelling. People possessing resources or employment were stripped of all assets. That is why any joy we feel is combined with agony and dread. I simply desire that we might exist in safety, away from detonations, not be forced to move, and that access points will reopen shortly,” said Nazli.

Relief Arrangements In Progress

Humanitarian organizations said they were preparing to saturate the territory with nourishment and other essential supplies. The 20-point plan includes provisions for a boost to humanitarian assistance. The leader of the global health agency, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said his agency stood ready to “scale up its work to address critical medical requirements of patients across Gaza, and facilitate reconstruction of the destroyed health system”.

The United Nations organization for Palestinian refugees, hailed the agreement as a “huge relief”, and stated it possessed adequate stored provisions beyond the territory to supply the devastated territory’s over two million people during the upcoming trimester. Although additional assistance has arrived in the region during previous days, supplies continue to be grossly insufficient, humanitarian workers said.

Relief and Concern Among Displaced Families

A resident called Jihad al-Hilu heard the news regarding the truce via radio broadcast while residing in his temporary dwelling within al-Mawasi. “In that instant, I felt a mix of joy and relief, similar to a spark of hope came back to my spirit following an extended period. We desperately wanted this occasion, for killings to end and for the atrocities that have shattered countless households to finish,” Hilu, 33 told the Guardian.

“At the same time, prevails substantial anxiety that lives within us. We are concerned that this peace arrangement might be temporary and that the war may restart as it did before.”

There are also widespread concerns about what peace could deliver to the territory, where more than 90% of homes have experienced ruin or leveled, virtually all public works obliterated and where many people goes hungry every day. Approximately 67,000 individuals mostly civilians have been killed amid armed conflict commenced after of the Hamas raid during late 2023, causing approximately 1,200 fatalities also mostly civilians with 251 individuals captured by combatants.

“My primary concern beyond other issues is the absence of safety. Starvation is tolerable, but the absence of safety constitutes the true catastrophe. I am concerned that the territory might become an area of disorder controlled by criminal groups and paramilitary organizations rather than proper governance.”

Present Conditions

Local sources indicated Israeli forces fired tank shells to stop individuals returning to northern parts of the territory early Thursday yet mentioned no sounds of fighting or aerial bombardments.

A resident named Nadra Hamadeh, who lost her sister, her relative, two family members and another relative were killed in the war, said she hoped to return from al-Mawasi to Gaza’s northern part as soon as possible to inspect her residence, which she assumes experienced destruction though not completely ruined.

“My heart is heavy for people who sacrificed their loved ones and residences … As for us, we look forward to revisiting our dwelling that we had to leave behind. The sensation persists similar to our essences were extracted from our beings at the time of evacuation,” the 57-year-old Hamadeh expressed.

“We desire that hostilities cease,