Displaced families’ tents crowd the beach in Al-Mawasi, Al-Qarara, southern Gaza Strip. Rain turns the ground into mud that can sweep away whatever belongings people have left. Photo: Refaat Ibrahim

When the ceasefire came into effect after two years of destruction and inhuman conditions, people in Gaza held on to a fragile hope that conditions might improve. The agreement announced by President Donald Trump on Oct. 10, 2025, and backed by Türkiye, Qatar, and Egypt, included comprehensive clauses such as resolving the issue of prisoners, a phased withdrawal of the Israel Occupation Forces, the return of civilians to their homes, humanitarian aid, and reconstruction plans.

More than a month after the announcement, none of these promises had materialized and hope in Gaza faded quickly. The suffering has not ended; it only changed shape. Conditions in Gaza grow harsher each day. Israel continued to impose its control over large parts of the strip and kept hundreds of thousands of people trapped in an endless cycle of displacement.

The agreement outlines an initial withdrawal followed by the release of prisoners, then another withdrawal that would allow civilians to gradually return to their destroyed homes and lands, while keeping occupation forces temporarily in a buffer zone before pulling out from it later. But Israel has implemented little of this. Official figures indicate that Israel still controls around 53 percent of Gaza’s territory and has turned it into a kind of closed zone surrounded by the “yellow line,” a security barrier marked by large yellow concrete blocks that cut these areas off from the rest of the Strip.

The yellow line has become a new symbol of suffering. Inside this wide zone, the Israeli army continues systematic demolitions that have destroyed almost all residential buildings, turning entire areas into empty land without features. Although the agreement clearly states that forces should withdraw and civilians should return, Israelis shoot anyone who crosses the unclearly marked “yellow line.”

This has created a double humanitarian tragedy. Tens of thousands of displaced families remain forced into the western part of Gaza in the area of Al-Mawasi along the coast of Gaza. This coastal area represents only 3 percent of the total area of Gaza, yet it now holds most of the displaced population, making it one of the most crowded places in the Middle East today. People live in a suffocating, barren environment with no services, no infrastructure, no clean water, and no possibility of returning to their original neighborhoods.

With the arrival of winter, conditions have grown even worse. The worn-out tents that have been used for two years can no longer withstand fierce winds, and rainwater leaks in from every side. Many displaced people have had to move their tents multiple times during their long displacement, which has made the tents weaker and more fragile. Plastic sheets are cracked, tent stakes loosen in the sand, and rain turns the ground into mud that can sweep away whatever belongings families have left.

Israa Abu Motair, who was displaced from Rafah to Al-Mawasi in May 2025, remembers the first day of her family’s displacement. “I remember how it rained that day even though it was not the rainy season, as if the sky wanted to give us a rehearsal for our suffering. We woke up with water falling on us from every direction. Our mattresses were soaked, our belongings were ruined, and the tent was filled with the smell of dampness. But the hardest part was looking at each other… eyes filled with fear, humiliation, a kind of defeat I still cannot describe.”

Israa says the tent has never offered her a feeling of home. “My house was on the Philadelphia line, the line that has remained a stumbling block in negotiations for two full years. When the first agreement was announced, I wrote then: ‘it hurts that tomorrow the birds may return to their nests while we are here.’ I never imagined I would be denied even the chance to stand on the rubble of my home that was erased completely with all its memories.”

She continues with a voice that carries both pain and hope. “I never imagined the war would return, and then a new ceasefire would place my entire city inside the yellow line. The question we hear most often in the camp is: When will we go back? I do not know if this is a question or a wish. We know the houses no longer exist, but returning is not about the houses… returning is about the land. We want to breathe its air and walk through its streets even if they have turned to ashes.”

She remarks on the cruelty of being displaced inside one’s own country. “To be exiled while still living within it, and to be denied access to your city while it sits right in front of you. Sometimes I think traveling away would be easier than facing all this destruction, but hope always finds its way back. Maybe the yellow line is long, but it is not longer than our patience.”

This article is co-published with Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.