"In Gaza, nobody is celebrating the ceasefire in the way the world might imagine. People treat it as a rare opportunity to catch their breath, not as a new chapter of peace. But there is a slightly different feeling this time, a mixture of hope and caution. Perhaps it is because it comes after the harshest months or perhaps because people simply need something, anything, to believe that tomorrow might bring a different life... a better one."
"I am one of the ones who lived through the war, displacement, the ceasefire and then war again. I left Gaza after 675 days of relentless turmoil. My departure was not a journey but a passage through layers of pain, from Gaza to Jordan and then to ­Paris, where I saw the world in a light I could not fully embrace."
"Then came Egypt, where a reunion I scarcely dared to hope for finally happened. I saw my wife and children after a year-and-a-half of separation and uncertainty. A single moment reclaimed what war had stolen. It reaffirmed that life, despite everything, can still triumph. That moment was not just a family reunion: it was a personal declaration that a Palestinian body can be battered and broken but the will to live cannot."
Peace grounded in human hearts matters more than agreements on paper. In Gaza, people view the ceasefire as a rare chance to breathe, blending hope with caution after the harshest months. The narrator endured war, displacement, a ceasefire and renewed conflict, leaving Gaza after 675 days of turmoil and traveling through Jordan to Paris. Comfort in Paris contrasted with persistent memories of Gaza's ruined streets and suffering faces. A reunion in Egypt reunited the narrator with wife and children after eighteen months, proving that life and the will to live can survive devastation. The ceasefire offers fragile hope while reminding of profound losses.
Read at Irish Independent
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