Iman’s aunt’s house in the condition it was found after the ceasefire. Photo: Omer Yousef

On Sunday January 19, 2025, before the clock struck 8:30 a.m., the bombing continued. We couldn’t stand by the windows or on the balcony to see what was happening, fearing a stray bullet might strike one of us at the last hour. But once the clock hit 8:30 a.m., everyone in the streets began chanting, “It’s a ceasefire! It’s a ceasefire!”

Some households started chanting Takbeer, which refers to the phrase “Allāhu Akbar,” meaning “Allah is the Greatest,” although the sounds of war were still ongoing. We weren’t sure whether the gunfire was celebratory or coming from the Israeli occupation forces.

I sat with my kids, trying to calm them, assuring them that the war would end and we would return to our house in Gaza City. We had been displaced from our home in Gaza City to my parents’ house in the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp on November 17, 2023.

After the ceasefire announcement, my brother, a mosque muezzin, contacted the young men from our neighborhood in Nuseirat. They all gathered to repair and clean what remained of the mosque, since it had been closed due to fear of it being targeted during the war. After hours of work, we finally heard the call to prayer, which had been denied to the people of the area for so long.

Some neighbors had to board up their windows during the war, to prevent the shards of glass from scattering everywhere during bombardments. I thought to myself, “Now that the shelling has stopped, we can finally remove the boards covering the windows and let the light in, even if only partially.”

Counting the losses

The announcement of the ceasefire was met with mass crying and wailing for every loss. It was a day when a long-overdue cry fully emerged. It was a day when the house became a mourning place, filled with tears.

I recalled everyone I knew when this war started but ended without them. My husband’s brother Taher was killed on the second day of the war, October 8, 2023. When I spoke to his wife Ahlam, she said, “How will we return to the north of the Gaza Strip without finding him waiting for us? How will life continue without him?

“The end of the war means that he will never return. The fact that I am a widow, and my two kids are orphans, is now a harsh reality. I hope to return and find his body to bid him the last delayed farewell.”

On January 17, 2025, just two days before the ceasefire announcement, my husband’s cousin Hussain was killed. At his funeral, his father Sami said, “He was sitting next to me yesterday, preparing his speech for victory and the ceasefire.” His sister Amal said, “I waited so long without seeing him due to security reasons. I, along with two sisters, had been displaced to the south of the Strip since the first day of the war, while he stayed in the north with his wife and my parents.

“Even as the war ended, I wished I could go north to Gaza and find him, my mother, and my father, but he was martyred before I could even kiss his forehead.”

On social media, it was painful for me to learn that some of my friends and acquaintances had been killed. My timeline became a collective mourning place for everyone I knew, as most of them had either been killed or lost a loved one. Everyone living shared in the loss, and stories were filled with images of their homes destroyed during the war, homes that were once full of life.

Many people I knew didn’t live to see the ceasefire take effect. There are many about whom I don’t know whether they were killed or survived; they are part of a long list of those lost in this war. Everyone I know has lost someone, whether a brother, husband, father, or sister, or their home was destroyed. I remembered them all, and tears filled my eyes. I was unable to stop them.

Assessing the damage

In the second week of the ceasefire, on January 26, 2025, as the exchange deal was declared, people returned from the south to the north of Gaza.

Neighbors preparing to return to their home in the north following the ceasefire announcement. Photo:  Amal Ibraheem

As displaced people began to return to their homes, they assessed the damage.

My aunt’s family, who had been staying with us since Rafah was attacked, was also dealing with their loss. Her son, my cousin Omar, immediately left when Israeli forces withdrew from Rafah, to check on their house. He found that it had been partially destroyed. All the furniture was burned, and the walls of the house were torn down. Theirs was the only house that remained standing in their neighborhood, while the rest had turned to rubble.

My cousin Sana’a, who lives in Rafah, found her house destroyed, too. She had left in the summer without being able to take all of her belongings or even her children’s winter clothes. Her sister’s house was also demolished. She lived with her husband’s family in a large new building, having furnished an entire floor for her family.

When her father-in-law saw the two destroyed homes, he suffered a stroke that left him unable to speak.

In our neighborhood, most of the houses have been evacuated since it overlooks Salah al-Din Street, which is close to the gathering point of Israeli occupation forces. It provides easy passage through the area, making it a strategic route often used during military incursions and movements.

The majority of our relatives and neighbors who had gone to check on their homes couldn’t find them. They preferred to come back south and stay in the displacement tents to avoid the risks of staying amongst the debris and unsafe conditions back home. One friend told me that the displacement area had become more stable, with some services available, such as access to water and food, and even places to charge mobile phones.

When everyone returned in their cars, playing songs of victory and joy, they greeted each other with, “Thank God for your safety.” I watched and waited for the moment I myself could return to my house after being away for over a year.

The new question: what next?

For a year and a half, everything was a series of unknowns. We only heard silence in answer to our questions, and felt its weight.

In my heart, there’s a sense of joy that the war has ended, for now, and the bloodshed has stopped. We no longer wake up to the shocking news that someone else we know has been killed or that a house we once knew has been destroyed.

However, the question we faced during the bombing of “where will we go?” is now replaced with the uncertainty of “to where we will return?” In Gaza, the irony is that displacement settlements, which were our destination in a time of nightmare, are now more stable than the neighborhoods we long to return to, because our homes have been destroyed.