November 26, 2023
3 mins read

Palestinians use truce to pick through rubble

After more than 24 hours of the four-day ceasefire, thousands of Gaza residents are returning from communal shelters and makeshift camps to assess the status of their homes….reports Asian Lite News

After seven weeks of bombardment stopped in Gaza for a truce, Tahani al-Najjar used the calm on Saturday to return to the ruins of her home, smashed by an Israeli air strike that she said killed seven of her family and forced her into a shelter.

More than 24 hours into the four-day pause in fighting, thousands of Gaza residents are making that same difficult journey from communal shelters and makeshift encampments to discover what has become of their homes.

“Where will we live? Where will we go? We are trying to collect bits of wood to build a tent to shelter us, but to no avail. There is nothing to shelter a family,” Najjar said, picking through the rubble and twisted metal of her house.

Najjar, a 58-year-old mother of five from Khan Younis in the south of the enclave, said Israel’s military had also levelled her house in two previous conflicts in 2008 and 2014.

She pulled several miraculously intact cups from the ruins, where a bicycle and dust-caked clothes lay amid the debris. “We will rebuild again,” she said.

For many of the 2.3 million people who live in the tiny Gaza Strip, the pause in the near-constant air and artillery strikes has offered a first chance to safely move around, take stock of the devastation, and seek access to aid imports.

At outdoor markets and aid depots, thousands of people stood queuing for some of the aid that began flowing into Gaza in larger quantities as part of the truce.

Since Hamas militants launched their unprecedented attack on Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, Israel’s response has been the bloodiest and most destructive offensive ever visited on the 40km-long (25 miles) Gaza enclave.

Palestinian health officials in the Hamas-run territory say the bombardment has killed more than 14,000 people, 40% of them children, and levelled swathes of residential districts. They have said thousands more bodies may remain under the rubble, still unrecorded in official death tolls.

Israel’s military last month told all civilians to leave the north of the strip, where the fighting was heaviest, but it continued to bombard the south where hundreds of thousands fled and where Najjar’s home was located.

It has said civilians should not return to the north during the truce and many of those who fled south are now seeking information from those who stayed behind.

An accompanying blockade has meanwhile added to a humanitarian crisis with little electricity for hospitals, fresh water, fuel for ambulances or food and medicines.

At a U.N. agency centre in Khan Younis, people waited for cooking gas. Supplies had begun running short weeks ago and many people were cooking food over open fires fuelled by scavenged wood salvaged from bomb sites.

Mohammed Ghandour had been waiting five hours to fill his cylindrical metal canister, after getting up at dawn in the school where he and his family shelter and making the long trip to the depot, but was still too late. “I’m now going home without gas,” he said.

However, at the Rafah crossing with Egypt, trucks could be seen early on Saturday moving slowly over the border and into Gaza bringing fresh supplies.

ALSO READ: 4-Day Gaza Truce Begins

Previous Story

‘Tears for Gaza’ attracts crowds in Tokyo

Next Story

Global Outcry Over Pakistan’s ‘Exit Fee’ For Afghan Refugees

Latest from -Top News

Pak Army Chief Targets India Again

This is not the first time that Munir has indulged in loose talk, exhibiting conduct unbecoming an officer….reports Asian Lite News Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Syed Asim Munir on

Yunus Must Be Treated Like Hasina, Warn Islamists

Islamist group made these warnings to the interim government, terming the women’s reform body proposals as “anti-Islamic…reports Asian Lite News The radical Islamist group in Bangladesh, Hefazat-e-Islam, has issued a threat, stating

UN: Bring Pahalgam Terrorists to Justice

The members of the Security Council “stressed that those responsible for these killings should be held accountable..reports Asian Lite News The Security Council has “condemned in the strongest terms” the Pahalgam terrorist

Vatican Hosts Final Rites for Pope Francis

The Argentine-born pontiff, the first from Latin America, died less than a month after returning home from a prolonged five-week hospitalisation for double pneumonia….reports Asian Lite News In an outpouring of global
Go toTop

Don't Miss

Backtracking on Palestinian aid suspension, EU says payments will continue

The Commission also said that it “unequivocally condemns the terrorist

UAE welcomes UN vote granting Palestine full membership

The Ministry reiterated the UAE’s consistent call on the international