Ameen al-Zein, like many in Gaza, was overjoyed by the news of the ceasefire. It was a rare moment of relief after years of fear and loss. On Tuesday night he gave an interview to a local NGO urging people to return to their homes in northern Gaza now that fighting had stopped. Just half an hour later, Zein was dead, killed in an Israeli bombing on the school where he had been sheltering in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza.
He died without being able to fulfil his vow to his wife that they would return to Beit Lahia and pitch a tent over the rubble, eager to be home even if their house was no longer there.
“When the most recent truce was announced, Abu Luay felt so happy and relieved,” said his wife, Maryam, using a family name for him. “He told me that finally the bloodshed would stop and people could live in peace. Sadly, that feeling didn’t last. Israel violated the ceasefire again.”
Zein was one of 115 people killed and 352 injured during 24 hours of Israeli bombardment of Gaza this week, according to the Gaza health ministry. The strikes came after Hamas returned body parts of a hostage whose remains Israeli troops had recovered two years before, and Palestinian militants attacked Israeli troops in southern Gaza.
It was the deadliest day in Gaza since the ceasefire was put in place on 10 October and one of the deadliest days in the whole of the two-year war.
The bombings were just the latest in a series of Israeli violations of the three-week-long ceasefire in Gaza. After the initial enthusiasm over the ceasefire announcement, worry has set in among the people of Gaza. They are fearful that the ceasefire does not mean an end to the war but just less frequent and more random bursts of violence they are unable to predict. That randomness makes their own futures hard to imagine, much less to plan.
Hussain Abu Munir feels the uncertainty of the ceasefire on his daily commute to work. He travels in a bus filled with other medical professionals displaced to southern Gaza to their workplaces in northern Gaza.
To gather so openly with other medical professionals is already unnerving after two years of war where medical workers have become targets. At least 1,722 healthcare workers were killed during the war in Gaza, according to Medical Aid for Palestine. But the journey itself, through the Netzarim checkpoint into northern Gaza, makes Abu Munir fear for his life.
“Each day we go and return, it feels like embarking on a dangerous, uncertain journey, without protection or assurance,” said the 40-year-old nurse. “My biggest fear is not for myself but for my children, whom I leave alone in the south when I go to work.”
He said he was afraid Israel might close the Netzarim checkpoint while he was at work, meaning he would be unable to return to his children.
On Wednesday, Israeli shells began to be fired seemingly at random as Abu Munir approached the Netzarim checkpoint. People screamed for the buses to stop but they managed to make it through unharmed.
“We didn’t encounter any direct targeting on our way, but the truth is that no one can guarantee our safety,” Abu Munir said.
Despite the bombing and high death toll this week, international mediators said they were confident the ceasefire would hold. Donald Trump said nothing would jeopardise the truce, while the US vice-president, JD Vance, downplayed the violence as “skirmishes”.
After their statements, Israel struck Gaza again on Wednesday, this time saying it was targeting a Hamas weapons cache that was to be used in an imminent attack.
The continued strikes are disturbing for those in Gaza, who worry they are being led into the same sort of ceasefire that prevails in Lebanon, where Israel carries out airstrikes daily despite a year-old truce.
To Ikram Nasser, a 36-year-old English teacher, the ceasefire has so far been a disappointment. She had hoped it would provide the safety required to return her own children and her students back to the classroom after two years of interrupted education.
She has watched children regressing socially as the normal staples of childhood – play and learning – have been overtaken by the grim logistics of survival.
“Many have become more aggressive and rough, not because they chose to but because of the reality they’ve been forced to live. These children now chase after food distributions, aid trucks or even water tankers,” Nasser said.
In the first days of the ceasefire, it seemed there would be a chance to return those children back to normality. More tents were turned into classrooms and children began to line up outside, eager to learn.
“Some even arrive as early as seven in the morning, an hour before lessons begin, simply because they’ve missed learning and the feeling of normal life they were deprived of for so long,” Nasser said.
This week of bombings, however, has shattered any illusions that life in Gaza could soon return to normal, for children or for adults.
“Even now, we don’t feel safe,” Nasser said. “Every day brings a new violation of the ceasefire. The situation remains extremely difficult, for us as mothers and as teachers. We no longer trust the ceasefire will hold.”
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: theguardian.com
