Palestinians hoping to return to Gaza Rafah find the city in ruins | News about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Rafah, Gaza Strip, Palestine – Palestinian farmer Abd al-Sattari owned two houses in Rafah, Gaza. Nine months since Israeli forces invaded the southern city, he has been forced into displacement. The 53-year-old lived with the hope that if one house was hit in one of the Israeli attacks, which leveled more than 70 percent of the territory, the other would remain standing and bring his family back into the war. finally finished.

On Sunday, even before cease-fire came into force, Abd took his eldest son Mohammed and left the rest of their family in their displacement tent in al-Mawasion the southwest coast of Gaza. They raced to one estate, then another to face the grim reality: both of his houses—one in the Shabour area, the other in Mirage—had been reduced to rubble. Abdo’s hopes of a return to normalcy are dashed.

A long-awaited ceasefire agreement came into force on Sunday morning, bringing what Palestinians hope will be an end to the gruesome war that has more than 46,900 people were killeddestroyed much of the besieged enclave and displaced more than 2 million people. Even before the ceasefire began, hundreds of families were rushing back to Rafah, having fled the Israeli invasion, with their few belongings packed into vehicles, animal-drawn carts and bicycles.

Israeli forces continued their attacks on Gaza, killing more Palestinians just before the ceasefire began. But that hasn’t stopped some families who have already headed to their old neighborhoods and camped out in the ruins of what used to be their homes, eager to get through the darkest months of their lives.

As they crossed the cratered roads that criss-cross Rafah, some families chanted, “We will rebuild.” We will live.”

‘Rafah is gone’

But for many, joy turned to anguish when the wasteland returned.

While surveying his first home, which spans 200 square meters (2,000 sq ft), and his second two-storey house of 160 square meters (1,700 sq ft), Abd found only destruction. Visits to the homes of his three brothers revealed similar devastation. Without a roof to shelter his family, his dreams of ending their seven-month displacement came crashing down.

Sitting amid the rubble, Abd called his wife, who was waiting at the al-Mawasi camp with the family’s belongings packed into a truck. He broke the news over the phone: their homes were uninhabitable, without walls, water or basic services. His wife wept bitterly, begging him to return despite the devastation, but Abd insisted that was impossible.

Their eldest son, Mohammed, took the phone to convince his mother to stay, assuring her that they would explore ways to prepare for a future return.

“The Rafah we knew is gone,” lamented Abd. “The streets where we grew up, the places where we worked – they are now unrecognizable.”

For Abdo’s family of six children, this day was supposed to mark the end of the misery of displacement. Instead, they face the grim reality of rebuilding from scratch.

Abd thought about their failed hopes. “We thought we would finally escape from the tent and live inside the walls again. But now it feels like a new kind of destruction – this time, not from bombs, but from the sheer lack of basic necessities of life.”

A desperate return home

In the days leading up to the ceasefire, Palestinians in Gaza were preparing for what they hoped would be the end of their misery – more than 1.8 million people were suffering from severe hunger and hundreds of thousands were living in flimsy tents that they barely protected them from the winter that killed the babies due to hypothermia.

Families like Nasim Abu Alwan, who returned his nine children to find his home destroyed, chose to live among the rubble. “We will fetch water from afar if we have to,” Nasim said. “We are done with tents. We stay in Rafa, no matter what.”

According to the United Nations, more than 60 percent of buildings and 65 percent of roads across Gaza have been destroyed since October 7, 2023, when the war began.

“More than 42 million tons of debris were created, in which human remains and unexploded ordnance (UXO), asbestos and other hazardous substances were buried,” according to the report of the UN humanitarian agency (OCHA).

Other residents of Rafah, such as Amjad Abdullah, decided to stay in Khan Younis, not wanting to endure life among the ruins. “It’s impossible to live here,” he said after discovering his neighborhood was inaccessible even on foot. “Rafah has become a graveyard of buildings. Without water, roads or basic infrastructure, life here is unimaginable.”

According to Mohammed al-Sufi, the mayor of Rafah, the scale of the destruction in Rafah is “staggering”.

“The city is uninhabitable,” he told Al Jazeera.

Al-Sufi said “70 percent of its facilities and infrastructure were destroyed.”

“Key areas such as the Philadelphia Corridor, which makes up 16 percent of the Rafah area, remain off-limits, while large parts of eastern Rafah are similarly inaccessible,” he added. The Philadelphia Corridor is a strip of land that runs along Gaza’s border with Egypt.

Municipal workers race against time to clear roads, restore water and deal with unexploded ordnance hazards. But the municipality warns against a hasty return.

“We need a gradual, cautious approach. Without basic services, life cannot continue,” said one of the workers.

Despite the destruction, the residents of Rafa remain defiant. The families cling to their connection to the town, determined to reclaim what little is left. As one father said: “We suffered too much in exile. Rafah is home, and we will restore him – even if it takes a lifetime.”

This work was published in collaboration with Egab.