"After months of fleeing bombardment, sleeping in tents, schools, or under makeshift nylon sheets, many families finally walked back to their homes in northern Gaza during the fragile ceasefire in January 2025. The roads were lined with rubble. Our houses were broken shells, neighbourhoods unrecognisable. Yet we carried a fragile hope: that by stepping back onto our land, even among ruins, we were reclaiming our lives."
"The idea that the Israeli military might herd hundreds of thousands of us is terrifying precisely because we know what those cities would really be: overcrowded compounds, controlled checkpoints, food and water distribution under armed watch if we are lucky enough to receive them no freedom of movement, no guarantee of ever leaving. Families who have just swept dust from their broken floors now whisper about whether they should keep bags half-packed, ready to flee once again."
Survivors returned to northern Gaza during a fragile January 2025 ceasefire after months of displacement and bombardment. Homes were destroyed, roads lined with rubble, and neighborhoods flattened, yet returnees felt a fragile hope of reclaiming their lives. Reports of mass relocations, humanitarian cities, and population transfers raised fear of forced moves to military-controlled camps in southern Gaza. Those camps would be overcrowded, under armed checkpoints, reliant on controlled food and water distribution, and allow no freedom of movement or guarantee of leaving. Families keep bags half-packed. Children react with fear. Survivors fear renewed exile, humiliation, and erasure of normal life.
Read at www.aljazeera.com
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