Hello and welcome to the details of ‘We slept in peace’: War-weary Gazans savour first tranquil night amid fragile truce and now with the details
Nevin Al Sukari - Sana'a - Palestinians set up a tent on the rubble of their house in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip on January 20, 2025, a day after a ceasefire deal in the war between Israel and Hamas went into effect. — AFP pic
GAZA CITY, Jan 21 — For the first time in more than a year, war-displaced Gazan Ammar Barbakh awoke yesterday feeling refreshed after a night spent in a tent, but free of Israeli attacks.
“This is the first time I sleep comfortably and I’m not afraid,” Barbakh, 35, told AFP a day after a fragile truce in the Israel-Hamas war took hold.
“We didn’t hear any shelling, and we weren’t afraid,” he said.
Barbakh, from Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, pitched a tent on the rubble of his former home.
Despite the destruction, he was thrilled to have had a peaceful sleep.
“It’s a beautiful feeling, and I hope the ceasefire continues”, said Barbakh.
Thousands of displaced Palestinians like him have headed back to their home areas across the Gaza Strip since the ceasefire came into effect on Sunday.
Palestinian children ride in the back of a tuk-tuk in Gaza's southern city of Rafah on January 20, 2025, as residents return following a ceasefire deal a day earlier between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. — AFP pic
For Samer Daloul, “it was the first night we slept in peace” since the war’s first truce, a one-week pause in November 2023 about two months after fighting erupted.
“The sound of fighter jets and drones was present all night, but the air strikes stopped,” said Daloul.
The new-found calm has given him a chance to reflect on the grave losses he suffered during the war, including the deaths of 32 of his relatives, he said.
“I’m happy and sad at the same time,” said Daloul, expressing his hope that the initial 42-truce would hold and give way to a permanent ceasefire.
In the tiny coastal territory, practically everyone knows at least one person from the tens of thousands killed in the war, or at the very least someone who lost a loved one.
And nearly all of the besieged territory’s 2.4 million residents have been displaced at least once during the war, according to UN figures.
Many have nowhere to return to with more than 60 per cent of buildings across Gaza damaged by fighting, shelling or air strikes.
Palestinians stand near building rubble in a ruined neighbourhood of Gaza's southern city of Rafah on January 20, 2025, as residents return following a ceasefire deal a day earlier between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group. — AFP pic
Rebuilding
Daloul has been sheltering in a school building along with 12 family members, five of them children.
Other displaced Gazans have built makeshift shelters or erected tents with whatever material they could find amid severe shortages.
In central Gaza, pedestrians and drivers moved around freely yesterday along the main coastal road that hugs the Mediterranean Sea, a semblance of normal life save for the rows of hundreds of tents housing displaced families.
Even those with a house — or mere walls — to return to must still guarantee basic conditions before proper rebuilding can begin.
Still, some took to repainting a wall still standing, or searched through the rubble for any belongings the could still salvage.
Noha Abed, 28, has returned with her husband and three children to the family’s home in the southern city of Rafah, which now has only one livable room.
“Our house was beautiful, a one-storey building with three rooms. We lost everything,” she told AFP.
But after cleaning it and putting their belongings in what is left of the house, Abed said the family “want to live in it until the rebuilding happens”.
For now, her focus is on securing “food, water, electricity, beddings and blankets” for the family, who had been sleeping in a tent further north for about 10 months, said Abed.
Despite the difficult conditions, she said that this was “the first night I sleep without being afraid for my children”.
Looking ahead, Abed said, “the most important thing is that the war does not resume.” — AFP
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