By Nidal al-Mughrabi, Dawoud Abu Alkas and Ramadan Abed
CAIRO/GAZA (Reuters) – On foot or riding rickshaws, many Palestinians exhausted by war in Gaza began returning to the ruins of their homes on the third day of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, shocked by complete destruction.
The truce took effect on Sunday after 15 months of conflict with the handover of the first three hostages held by Hamas and the release of 90 Palestinians from Israeli jails.
Now attention is starting to shift to the rebuilding of the coastal enclave which the Israeli military has laid to waste in its campaign to eliminate Hamas in retaliation for the militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel.
Some Gazans couldn’t even recognise where they once lived and turned their back on shattered neighbourhoods to return to tents where they have sheltered for the past several months. Others began to clear debris to try to move back to the wreckage of their homes.
“We are cleaning the house, and removing the rubble, so we are able to return home. Those are the quilts, pillows, nothing was left at the house,” said Palestinian woman Walaa El-Err, pointing to her destroyed belongings at her bombed-out home in Nuseirat, a decades-old refugee camp in central Gaza.
She said the feeling of returning to her neighbourhood was “indescribable”. She said she’d stayed up all night on Saturday waiting for the truce to take effect the next day. But the optimism surrounding news of a ceasefire has dimmed.
“When I went into the camp, I teared up, as our camp was not like that, it was the best. When we left all towers, homes were still untouched, and none of the neighbours had been killed,” she lamented.
In Gaza City in the north, Abla, a mother of three children, waited for a few hours to make sure the truce held on Sunday before heading to her home in the Tel Al-Hawa suburb, devastated by Israeli bombardments and ground offensives.
The scene was “horrific” she said, as the seven-floor building had been completely destroyed, “smashed like a piece of biscuit.”
“I heard the area was hit hard and the house could have been gone, but I was driven by both doubt and hope that it could have been saved,” she told Reuters via a chat app.
“What I found wasn’t just a house, it is the box of memories, where I had my children, celebrated their birthday parties, made them food, and taught them their first words and moves,” she said.
Some set up tents next to the rubble of their houses, or moved into wrecked homes, wondering when the reconstruction would begin.
A U.N. damage assessment released this month showed that clearing over 50 million tonnes of rubble left in the aftermath of Israel’s bombardment could take 21 years and cost up to $1.2 billion.
To make matters worse, some of the debris is believed to be contaminated with asbestos, as some of Gaza’s devastated refugee camps, built up into cities over the decades, are known to have been constructed with the material.
Gaza health authorities say at least 47,000 people have been killed in the conflict, with the rubble likely holding the remains of thousands more.
A United Nations Development Programme reports says that development in Gaza has been set back seven decades by the 15-month war.
DIGGING FOR BODIES
Palestinian rescue workers continued the search for the bodies of Gazans buried under the rubble of their houses and on the roadsides, locating at least 150 bodies since the truce went into effect, according to Gaza civil emergency service.
Shocking images of decayed bodies spread on social media. At Shejaia cemetery, which had been flattened by Israeli tanks and bulldozers in previous months, several men dug the ground searching for the graves of their relatives.
“I have been searching and looking for my father’s grave, my brother’s grave, and my brother’s wife’s grave, and I can’t find them,” said Atef Jundiya, at the cemetery in Gaza City.
“I mean, we have been relieved by the ceasefire, but at the same time, we are still searching for our martyrs and searching for our graves and can’t find them,” Jundiya told Reuters.
The civil emergency service estimates that 10,000 bodies were still buried under the rubble, calling for heavy machinery and earth-moving vehicles to help in the extraction process, which officials expect to last for several months.
(Writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Reporting by Dawoud Abu Alkas and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Cairo; Editing by Michael Georgy and Ros Russell)
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