Gaza: The war in Gaza has drawn to a close, yet the dense clouds of dust billowing from thousands of tons of pulverized rubble, from homes leveled and neighborhoods effaced, and from the ruin sprawling across every corner of the besieged, war-torn Strip, attest that other wars still rage, deeply nested under the hearts of Gazans who have been seared by loss, death, displacement, and hunger for more than 735 consecutive days.
Those who remain alive stand as enduring witnesses to the massacre of the century, a human catastrophe that veered far into the irrational and stripped the conflict of every moral and humanitarian restraint.
The first day of the ceasefire, long awaited and desperately invoked by Gazans for nearly two years, has elapsed, bringing a fragile halt to the torrents of blood that had inundated streets reduced to skeletal remnants and cities wiped off Gaza's geographic map under a ruthless campaign of annihilation.
The offensive extinguished all manifestations of life in the tormented enclave, leaving behind orphans, widows, and the wounded caught in the throes of mental suffering, poverty, and disease.
In Gaza today, even the most basic human needs have become distant aspirations, as the population endures the aftermath of an anthropogenic disaster of historic proportions.
With the Israeli occupation forces pulling back from populated areas and positions across the Gaza Strip, under the ceasefire deal announced last Thursday in Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh, brokered by Qatar, Egypt, and Turkiye, the sheer scale of tragedy, devastation, and loss of life and property has come into full view.
The war's brutal toll has left Gaza uninhabitable, as confirmed by UN assessments, global reports, and official estimates, following a ferocious campaign in which the occupying army exhausted every weapon in its arsenal, leaving behind a landscape of devastation.
Amid endless mounds of debris, shattered stones, and remnants of homes, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reached 75-year-old Talat Al Najjar, who points to the overwhelming shock he felt while attempting to reach his house in the town of Abasan, east of Khan Younis in southern Gaza, only to find that nothing remained of the neighborhood he once lived in. The war obliterated homes, streets, facilities, and farmlands that once defined the area.
As he tried to recognize what was left of his home, Al-Najjar said he experienced displacement several times during this war. The last time he left his house, about five months ago, the area had been filled with homes, farms, and trees. Now it has turned into a desert, a place no human being could possibly live in.
The area has been designated as a red zone, meaning every single person is prohibited from returning or resettling there, he adds, and explains that today, he risked his life and that of his children merely to check on what used to be our home, now reduced to a mound of stones.
People will go back to living as displaced persons, he says pessimistically, before adding that he will live, along with fifteen members of his family, in makeshift tents in the Al Mawasi area west of Khan Younis.
No one knows when this ordeal will end, but it is evident that reconstruction will stand among the most arduous and complex issues to address in the aftermath of the war, he adds.
As waves of displaced Palestinians begin their eventual return from southern Gaza to its northern districts, harrowing chapters of suffering continue to unfold, a shared ordeal imposed upon the residents of northern Gaza as it was upon the rest of the Strip.
The withdrawal of occupation forces from Gaza City has laid bare the enormity of destruction across neighborhoods that had been overrun by ground incursions and subjected to relentless aerial domination.
Entire districts, particularly Al Zaytoun, Tel Al Hawa, and Al Sabra in southern Gaza City, along with Al Jalaa, Al Saftawi, Al Nasr, Al Nafaq, Sheikh Radwan, and Al Shati refugee camp to the north, have been flattened, with residential blocks erased and infrastructure deliberately dismantled in a campaign of calculated devastation by the occupying army.
Civilians returning to northern Gaza told QNA correspondent that they found nothing resembling the Gaza City they had left behind. What greeted them instead was sweeping devastation, a city stripped of its landmarks, its streets unrecognizable under the weight of destruction.
Khitam Shaban recounted that, at the onset of the war, she lost three of her sons in an airstrike that targeted her family home in Al Rimal neighborhood, in central Gaza City.
She herself sustained injuries that left lasting scars on her legs, a constant reminder of the horror she endured.
She recounts to QNA that during the most recent Israeli incursion into Gaza City, her remaining family members and she were forced to flee toward the central part of the Strip.
Once the ceasefire took effect, she returned immediately, only to be shocked to find her home and everything in it reduced to nothingness, much like the rest of the buildings along this street.
Shaban affirmed that she has no option but to pitch a tent atop the ruins of her home and live there with her family, as there is simply nowhere else to go. The vast scale of destruction across Gaza has left no habitable apartments or viable shelters, and no displacement camps equipped with even the most basic humanitarian services.
The Israeli occupation forces waged a war on Gaza amounting to a fully-fledged genocide under international law, said Undersecretary of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, Jawad Al Agha in the Gaza Strip.
He emphasized that the occupiers weaponized food, water, and medicine, demolished 90% of civilian infrastructure, and seized over 80% of the Strip through invasion, bombardment, and forced displacement, actions constituting crimes against humanity and clear violations of international law.
The preliminary statistics, still subject to verification after the cessation of hostilities, indicate that the occupation entirely destroyed approximately 300,000 housing units, while an additional 200,000 were severely or partially damaged, Al Agha told QNA.
This, he added, led to the forcible displacement of nearly two million people, who were crammed into dilapidated, uninhabitable tents, enduring extreme and relentless hardship, noting that preliminary direct losses across all vital sectors in Gaza as a result of the aggression exceed USD70 billion, reflecting the systematic and comprehensive destruction inflicted on the Strip over two full years of genocidal assault.
Director General of the Government Media Office, Ismail Al Thawabta revealed to QNA that the Israeli occupation dropped 200,000-plus tons of explosives on Gaza, accounting for the immense scale of devastation that continues to unfold even after the ceasefire and the withdrawal of occupation forces.
The death toll and number of missing persons has reached as many as 77,000, including over 67,000 casualties admitted to hospitals, among them more than 20,000 children, 12,500 women, over 1,000 infants under one year, and 450 newborns who perished during the genocide at the hands of the Israeli army, Al Thawabta recounts.
The ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel, brokered in Egypt's Sharm El-Sheikh, entered into force on Friday, following the occupation government's ratification and the start of its army's pulling back from populated areas.
Displaced Palestinians have begun returning to northern Gaza as part of the first phase of the US initiative led by President Donald Trump to end the war that the Israeli occupation unleashed on Oct. 7, 2023, a campaign that obliterated the very fabric of life and essential services across the enclave.
