As Israel violates ceasefire, displaced Gazans fear to return home

Rasha Abou Jalal reports from Gaza

Rasha Abou Jalal is a journalist from the Gaza Strip covering Palestinian political, humanitarian and social issues for multiple outlets, including Drop Site News, Al-Monitor, The New Arab and the Electronic Intifada. She is a permanent member of the judging committee for the annual Press House Palestine Award. In the photo above, Rasha’s children show off the ‘cake’ they made from sand to celebrate the ceasefire.

Although waves of joy swept through the displaced families in the Gaza Strip following the announcement of the ceasefire on October 10, that joy quickly faded in the face of a harsh reality – the road back to Gaza City is far from paved with hope, as many had wished. The residential neighborhoods that were systematically destroyed by the Israeli army during the war remain piles of rubble, and the return to them is slow, uncertain, and filled with fear.

The reasons behind the delayed return of displaced residents vary but all converge on a shared concern for the future: some fear the resumption of war amid ongoing Israeli violations, others cannot afford the exorbitant cost of transportation, while many see no point in returning to areas turned into forbidden zones lacking basic services or housing.

For now, tents and makeshift camps remain the only refuge for tens of thousands of families still waiting for a true moment of safety before they can return to the ruins.

Sitting in front of her tent in a shelter camp west of Deir al-Balah, Umm Yousef Yassin, 42, displaced from the Al-Daraj neighborhood in central Gaza City, watches her four children playing on the sand – the only playground they have known since being displaced nearly a year ago.

She sighs deeply and says, “When they announced the ceasefire on October 10, I couldn’t believe my ears. I cried with joy, hugged my children, and told them, ‘Finally, we’ll go back home.’ For a moment, I felt the nightmare had ended.”

But her facial expression quickly changes as she adds, her voice filled with sadness, “The joy didn’t last long. Just a few days later, on October 19, Israeli bombardments returned across Gaza’s neighborhoods. They said the army launched airstrikes after Palestinian resistance fighters blew up an Israeli military vehicle in Rafah, in the south. We started reliving the same fear, the same sleepless nights under bombing. That’s when I realised the calm was only temporary – the war could return at any moment.”

It was later reported that an unexploded ordnance may have blown up the Israeli vehicle.

Holding the torn cover of her tent, she continues. “Everyone here in the camp was waiting for the moment to go back to Gaza City, but after what happened, many changed their minds. We feel like returning now would mean walking back into death. As long as there’s no final agreement and no real guarantees, we’ll keep living on the hope of return – not the reality of it.”

She recalls the night she fled her home. “When we left Gaza City weeks ago, we ran under the shelling. We left everything behind – our house, our photos, our memories. I don’t want to relive that again. My son Imad, he’s nine years old, still panics whenever he hears a plane. Whenever there’s a sound in the sky, he runs to me asking, ‘Mum, has the war started again?’ How can I go back and make them live through that terror once more?”

Glancing toward her children playing with empty cans, she says, “Going back now is a gamble. Yes, I miss my home and my street, but my heart tells me the war isn’t really over. I can’t believe in a ceasefire as long as the bombing keeps flaring up and Israel continues to threaten. Here, we live in double fear – fear of staying in the tent, and fear of returning to the unknown.”

The exorbitant costs of return

In a small tent set up on the outskirts of Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis city, Mohammed Jibran, 47, sits beside a makeshift stove built from stones and tin cans. He was preparing a cup of tea over a weak fire as the desert wind whipped up the sand around him. “Yes, I was happy when they announced the ceasefire, like everyone else,” he says. “But going back to Gaza for me is now a distant dream. Not because I don’t want to – but because I can’t.”

Jibran, displaced from the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in northern Gaza City, explains that returning home would cost far more than any displaced family can afford. “Truck drivers are asking between $600 and $700 to transport one family with a few belongings back to Gaza. I’ve been jobless since the war began; I can barely afford bread for my children. Where could I possibly get that kind of money?”

“Even if I sold everything I own here, I couldn’t collect enough for the trip,” he adds. “Sometimes I think about walking back on foot, but how could I carry my kids and our things? Nothing is free anymore – even returning home has become a business.”

Speaking of life inside the shelter camp in Al-Mawasi, Jibran says, “We live on aid, but it’s never enough. There’s no work, no income, and prices are sky-high. Many families here want to return, but they simply can’t. They don’t even have the fare for a small car. We are prisoners of poverty – not just in our tents, but in our entire reality.”

With bitterness, he adds, “People think the end of the war means the end of suffering. But in truth, the suffering has just begun. Those with money go home, and those without are left here to wait for the unknown.”

Residential areas turned into military zones

Inside her tent west of Deir al-Balah, Omniya Ghaban, 35, a mother of five displaced from the town of Jabalia in northern Gaza, holds an old photograph of herself standing in front of her home. Running her fingers gently along its edges, she says, “This was my house... small, but full of warmth. Today, I don’t even dare to go near it.”

“Our town is still classified within what they call the Yellow Zone – the area under Israeli military control. They prohibit anyone from returning, saying it remains a closed military operations zone. Anyone who approaches is targeted immediately.”

She raises her gaze to the sky, as if addressing it. “I just want to see my home, even if it’s destroyed. But we live between fear and military orders. I can’t risk my life or my children’s lives.”

Ghaban recalls how her hopes of returning home were dashed shortly after the ceasefire was declared on October 10. “We thought the truce meant we could go home right away, but within days we learned that not everyone is allowed to return. Northern Gaza, especially Jabalia, is still completely closed off. The Israeli army set up observation points there and forbids anyone from coming near.”

“Even if they allowed us to go back, where would we go?” she asks. “My house is now a pile of rubble, my children’s school was destroyed, and the hospital in Jabalia no longer operates. There’s no water, no electricity, no safety. Going back there now would be like returning to a graveyard.”

Just a few days ago, the joy many displaced people felt at the ceasefire turned into new shock after the Israeli army committed a massacre against the Shaaban family in the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of eastern Gaza City.

On the afternoon of October 17, a civilian vehicle carrying 11 members of the Shaaban family – including seven children and two women – was returning from southern Gaza to their home inside the Yellow Zone under Israeli military control.

Unaware that entering the area would cost them their lives, an Israeli aircraft targeted the vehicle with a direct missile strike, killing everyone on board.

Witnesses said the army could have warned the family or prevented their entry by non-lethal means, but instead, it chose an immediate strike – turning their attempt to “go home” into a fatal journey.

Israeli violations

In a phone interview, Ismail Al-Thawabta, Director General of the Government Media Office in Gaza, warned that the ceasefire declared on October 10 is on the brink of collapse amid continued Israeli violations. He urged regional and international mediators to apply genuine pressure on Israel to ensure the truce holds and to protect civilians.

“The Israeli occupation has not truly committed to the ceasefire,” Al-Thawabta said. “Since the decision took effect, it has committed 80 violations across various parts of the Gaza Strip, resulting in 97 martyrs and 230 injuries, including 21 violations recorded just last Sunday.”

“What’s happening on the ground shows that Israel is trying to undermine the calm and drag the Strip back into war,” he added. “These violations include artillery shelling, limited airstrikes, and direct targeting of civilians attempting to return to areas that Israel itself declared as safe.”

Al-Thawabta noted that the continuation of these attacks is worsening the suffering of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians waiting to go home.

“People here live on the hope of returning,” he said, “but Israel is making that return a life-threatening risk. Unless mediators intervene seriously, the ceasefire will remain nothing more than ink on paper.”

He stressed that the Government Media Office is carefully monitoring and documenting all violations with data, photos, and testimonies, adding that “the international community bears a major responsibility to pressure Israel to fully adhere to the terms of the ceasefire and reopen roads for the safe return of displaced civilians”.