A truce in which we can't go home

I took this picture from my balcony in Rafah on a cold winter's day.

Today is the 25th of November and it’s the second day of the truce. The night before it started there was a huge bombing next to the building I’m staying in and all the children were terrified and were screaming. It was really chaotic that night. Yesterday when the truce began at 7am the plan was to hopefully start the day afresh but it didn’t turn out to be that way at all. 

The moment I learnt that one of the conditions of the truce was that we could not return to our homes in Gaza city, tears started to roll down my face. All I had hoped and dreamed about was to go home. I was yearning for it and desperate to do it but we can’t go; we have to stay here in Rafah. 

So yesterday, as my sister has been displaced to Rafah as well, we decided to meet. She’s just a taxi ride away but obviously during the conflict we couldn’t meet unless it was extremely important. We spent the whole day together and we were planning to visit one of our other relatives who lives in Rafah. But we didn’t make it because we were so emotionally drained and she had to make bread for her family. Usually we would get bread from bakeries but since the start of the war people have had to bake their bread. As a result of how time consuming it is to take care of our basic needs, we’ve also missed out a lot on family visits.

Although we’re in a truce, everything feels the same as it did day before yesterday. We’re still not in our homes and we don’t even know if they’re still there. We have lost so many of our loved ones. We don’t feel the drones over our heads so that makes us feel a little more safe but we’re still afraid – every time a car passes by I’m afraid it might be a bomb. Every time the bathroom door slams shut because of the wind I think it might be a bomb. I feel threatened by any loud sound like it’s going to kill us.

Today I went to the market and noticed that prices are a little better than before. For example a bottle of water that cost 3 shekels before now costs 2 shekels. There are still a lot of things missing in the markets. I was surprised to learn about the high levels of dates that we consume in Gaza, as there are none available at all now in the markets. The fruit prices are also higher and it’s because the fruits were coming from Gaza City and the north, for example oranges are more expensive than they were. I also did not find any food for the cats and I am still sharing our food (which they don't like) with them until I'm able to find their food in the market. 

Last night I was heartbroken because I found out that one of my best friends had lost her three children and her husband are now in the hospital. This friend and I used to meet every Thursday evening at her mum’s place. She has four other sisters and they consider me as the sixth sister in their family. Now I’m too afraid to ask how she and her husband are doing because I can’t bear to hear any more bad news. 

It’s really noticeable now that things are calmer how noisy children have become because of the impact of what they’ve been through. They are hyperactive, they don’t feel safe, they’re really clingy to their mothers and they cry a lot. One of the children in our building is a year and three months old and he cries all the time because his mother was in the hospital in Jerusalem before the war and was supposed to to come back to Gaza the second day of the war. Of course she wasn't able to return. Before the truce I didn’t even realize these changes were happening in the children. 

For the first 20-25 days of the bombardment on Gaza, I slept without a cover. Then one night it was very cold and I suddenly realized I had actually been sleeping without a cover because I was so exhausted that I didn't even think of using one. I still can’t believe we can’t go back to Gaza City and I don’t know if we’ll ever get to back. But one thing I know for sure is that I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here, and I don’t want to go to Egypt or Al Arish. I want to go home and that’s all I wish for. Throughout my life I never even considered a second nationality because I always belonged to this place and I always was able to cope with it. 

Another thing I want to mention is that now there’s a truce, there are more cars moving on the road. But of course, there’s still a shortage of fuel and so there are a lot of cars using cooking oil. This is really polluting the air and it’s really hard to breathe. The high amounts of cooking oil being burned has created a constant fog in the air. Life has to go on by all means but we have had to resort to environmentally unfriendly methods for survival. This is another aspect of the conflict that few people consider.