Al -Rashid Street, Gaza City, Palestine – There are many stories among the tens of thousands of people walking along rue Al-Rashid in Gaza, north.
In the crowd is a man with a white beard that walks with determination alongside his family. In one hand, he wears a blanket and some skinny possessions. In the other, he holds his adult son, who has Down syndrome.
Rifaat Jouda does not claim that he is not tired. He started his trip in the morning in the south of Gaza, in Al-Mawasi from Khan Younis, where his family had been moved for 15 months during the War of Israel against Gaza.
The objective was to reach Gaza City, a trip finally possible since Israel allowed the Palestinians in the south of Gaza to travel north on Monday, after the start of a ceasefire on January 19.
But it is a long walk – about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) along a coastal road – and the Rifaat family was forced to stop resting every hour.
“The trip was exhausting and very difficult,” Rifaat told Tel Aviv Tribune, after finally reaching Gaza City. “Despite this, we were determined to come back.”
Rifaat is not sure of his plan now that he returned home. His physical house, in the north of the city of Gaza, no longer exists – he explains that he was destroyed during an Israeli attack in October.
“They (the contacts of Rifaat in the city of Gaza) say that the situation is very difficult, without water, without services and generalized destruction,” explains Rifaat. “But what is the difference?” We move from a difficult situation to an even more difficult situation. We rebuild what we can. But (making the trip to come back) put back our minds and renewed our hope. »»
Regret the trip
Before the war start of the war 15 months ago, the majority of the population of Gaza lived in the North, centered on the largest urban area in the enclave, Gaza City. But this is also where Israel concentrated his attacks and issued forced evacuation orders from the start of the war, telling people to flee towards “safe areas” in the center and southern Gaza.
This led to the majority of 2.3 million Gaza populations displaced in these central and southern areas, below a corridor carved in the center of Gaza, which Israel called Netzarim.
While destruction was overwhelming in the North – around 74% of Gaza City buildings were damaged or destroyed during the war – the supposed areas safe were not spared, and the areas in which people had fled were also Devastated – 50% of buildings in the center Le Deir El -Balah in Gaza was damaged or destroyed, while in the south of Gaza, it represented 55% of the buildings of Khan Younis and 48% of buildings in Rafah.
The constant Israeli attacks – which killed at least 47,300 throughout the war – forced the Palestinians to flee from the place to one place and made it feel that many should have left Gaza City and the North first.
“The travel days were the hardest and the most exhausting,” said Rifaat. “We cannot imagine continuing our lives as displaced people away from our homes.”
“Whoever sees these crowds understands that no forced displacement plan will succeed, whatever happens,” he adds, before suggesting that he could even return to Ashdod-a city just north of Gaza but Now in Israel – from which his family was forcibly moved in 1948 during what the Palestinians called Nakba, or “disaster”, with the creation of Israel.
The trip is a central motive for the Palestinians – due to the Nakba of 1948 while at least 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their home. Many people in Gaza himself are refugees, their families from cities and villages that are now part of Israel. And so, in particular after experience during the current war of Gaza, many regret having never left their homes in the North.
Sami al-Dabbagh, a 39-year-old man who returns to Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza, explains that he was moved to several different areas before settling in the center of Gaza. The father of four, having walked on foot for hours, says that he will never make the same mistake again.
“We will never repeat the experience of travel, whatever happens,” explains Al-Dabbagh.
It is a feeling shared by another man traveling in the north of Gaza, Radwan al-Ajoul.
“The trip taught us to never leave our homes again,” he said, while he was carrying his property on his shoulder.
The father of eight 45-year-old children lived in Deir El-Balah, but as Al-Dabbagh, he is also of Sheikh Radwan.
“The feeling of return is indescribable, especially since the conditions are not different between the North and the South,” he says.
Come back without family members
Conversations on al -Rashid Street are ephemeral – people who walk here have been moving for hours, trying to keep track of family members, helping those who are weaker than them and bearing the few personal effects they were able to keep a hand after a year of war and travel.
But shared details reveal the loss that the Palestinians in Gaza had to endure.
Khaled Ibrahim, 52, came from Khan Younis and heads towards Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City.
His family – he has four children – does not have the house to come back. He plans to install a tent instead.
But more than a house, he lost the closest to him; The wife of Ibrahim, his granddaughter, and two of his brothers were killed in a bombing near their tent in Khan Younis last June.
“Our lives are difficult. We have lost everything in all ways, ”explains Ibrahim.
Another repatriated, Nada Jahjouh, also lost her family. One of his sons was killed during the Gaza’s high return step – in 2018, before the war. Another was killed in May during an Israeli attack. She now has a son and a grandson – which she carries as she walks.
“We are exhausted, physically and mentally,” says Jahjouh. “I feel very sad to come back without my sons. My joy is incomplete.