Gazans Reflect on Surviving to See a Ceasefire: "Sometimes We Envy the Martyrs"

Nooh Al-shaghnobi sits on the rubble of his home in Gaza Photo Nooh Al-shaghnobi For Gaza s million survivors the word ceasefire no longer sounds like peace it sounds like a trick of language another fragile pause between massacres After two years of genocide that erased entire families neighborhoods and futures numerous in Gaza met this fragile truce not with celebration but disbelief exhaustion and fear One Palestinian described the current moment as a pause between two pains the horror they lived through and the uncertainty that has followed I spoke with six people from Gaza a filmmaker a photojournalist an architect a former spokesperson for the Gaza Municipality a civil worker and a survivor who offer a piercing look into what it means to first live through a genocide and then to try to live through its aftermath Their words reveal a haunting truth The war may have paused but it doesn t feel truly over No Triumph in Surviving Hala Asfour a -year-old filmmaker and photographer declared her initial reaction to the ceasefire was pure disbelief I didn t feel satisfaction she says Just this heavy oppressive feeling like my heart couldn t absorb what had happened I feel a great void Even a week later I still see the war everywhere in people s faces in the children in the echo of planes and drones that will never leave my memory For Asfour this ceasefire is a pause not peace She calls it a pause between two pains the agony of the genocide they endured and the suffering that continues in its aftermath I still see the war everywhere in people s faces in the children in the echo of planes and drones Fear is now part of her body she says and escaping it seems impossible Fear is something I breathe It s inside me Every loud sound every plane every buzz it takes me back to that first explosion of the war Safety I don t feel it at all she says She thinks this ceasefire is a pause that feels like the calm before the storm She and the people of Gaza lived through a multitude of truces before only to have new more devastating attacks follow Hala Asfour and her fianc Mohammad Salama who was killed in an Israeli airstrike Photo Mohammad Salama For Hala the war stole much more than homes It stole her life herself her friends her colleagues the familiar streets and everything that looked like her Hala also lost her fianc the Palestinian journalist Mohammad Salama an Al Jazeera camera operator in a double-tap Israeli strike on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis southern Gaza on August that also killed five other journalists My wish now is to have one normal day What I miss majority of is reassurance she says The simple feeling of waking up and knowing where your day will go My wish now is to have one normal day This genocide shattered Hala into fragments a girl who once dreamed and a woman who now struggles to survive In Gaza living becomes the harder choice more complicated than death itself There s no triumph in surviving It s a different kind of pain Hala reflects You wake up every day carrying the guilt of still being alive when others people you loved are gone and didn t make it till the end We survived to tell their stories to honor them but survival isn t a privilege Slowly she is learning to breathe again Life feels fragmented but with each child s laugh with every sunrise piercing the ruins we inch toward the possibility of breathing just a little Not because we are OK but because we have to try she says I Take More Photos Now Than During the War Itself For Anas Zayed Fteiha a -year-old photojournalist with Anadolu Agency the ceasefire has meant returning to work to document the aftermath of destruction Fteiha is at present pursuing legal action against the global publishing company Axel Springer which he has accused of violating his constitutional rights after one of its tabloids in Germany accused him of being a propagandist for Hamas The war has not really ended he says noting the breaches in the truce and the ongoing human cost for those left behind For mothers who lost their children for those who lost limbs for families left homeless the war never stopped But there is a paradoxical relief in the pause I feel relief but fear persists Fteiha says There s comfort in not hearing the explosions daily but the trauma is not gone What was once Anas Zayed Fteiha s home before the war Photo Anas Zayed Fteiha The people who lost their homes and have nowhere to go are what still haunts Anas after the ceasefire This genocide stole multiple friends and colleagues and my home the house I grew up in Our lives have shattered Gaza is no longer a livable place he says Sometimes we envy the martyrs who were killed they ve survived the pain and suffering we now face Gaza is no longer a livable place Even as the ceasefire seems to hold his work is intensifying and his camera keeps clicking capturing shots of survival and grief The rubble and the lives scattered among it demand documentation I take more photos now than during the war itself There are so a great number of stories that must be reported he says The experience has reshaped his understanding of journalism I thought journalism was protected I thought journalists were respected In Gaza I learned the hard truth Our work is sacred but we are not protected We witness and we are vulnerable Anas says We re Living in a City of Ghosts Nooh Al-shaghnobi a civil defense worker witnessed the war from the front lines of rescue operations I didn t believe the ceasefire at first he says Even now there are breaches and attacks on the so-called yellow zones the army designated and we are still pulling bodies from the rubble Thousands of bodies remain under the rubble around people The war didn t really stop it just began a new phase We work with shovels hammers and basic tools To remove one body can take a whole day Al-shaghnobi stayed in Gaza City on duty and refused to leave with his family to the south as two years of genocide stretched on and now Al-shaghnobi describes the recovery work as grueling and deeply traumatic With limited equipment each recovery is a struggle We work with shovels hammers and basic tools To remove one body can take a whole day And the smell the sight of decomposed remains skeletons skulls bones it is impossible to forget We re living in a city of ghosts he says Nooh Al-shaghnobi with his friend Saleh Aljafarawi left a journalist who was killed after the ceasefire was declared Photo Nooh Al-shaghnobi Faith and resilience he says have been reshaped I saw miracles and I survived each time the Civil Defense group was directly targeted while various of my colleagues were killed That changed me But our dreams our lives everything is fragile Any moment it can vanish he says The war didn t really stop it just began a new phase Al-shaghnobi s work makes him confront mortality every day Honestly those who died are the ones who really survived Yet for those of us who survived it s like living in a body without a soul The war took our loved ones our homes and our hope We ve learned to live numb We ve witnessed so much death and destruction that it has become part of our daily life he says Even in moments of gratitude there is also pain Al-shaghnobi recalled the shock of losing his close friend the journalist Saleh Aljafarawi just days after the ceasefire was disclosed We celebrated surviving the massacre only to see him killed That s the reality here the ceasefire is never complete The danger never ends Satisfaction and Fear Mixed Together Sara Bsaiso a human support manager echoed this mixture of relief and lingering terror When I heard about the ceasefire it felt like just another headline We ve heard about ceasefires before They never lasted We didn t believe this one would either Only when the bombing truly stops will we believe the war has ended she says After her family was forced to repeatedly flee south in March and returned north in February only to flee again before this majority newest ceasefire Bsaiso carries the exhaustion of displacement Survival now means facing a new battle Sometimes I think those who were killed might be in a better place than us because what lies ahead is another kind of war rebuilding from nothing living without homes jobs or normal life Hossam Bsaiso Sara s brother after his release from Israeli prison Photo Sara Bsaiso She reflects on what the war stole It took our sense of time safety stability normalcy minds lives homes jobs and for a time her brother Hossam was imprisoned for over a year in Israeli prisons She describes the moment when her family unveiled out her brother would be issued When we saw his name on the list of disclosed prisoners elation and fear mixed together We were terrified it might change at the last minute When we definitively saw him before us safe it felt like a dream That was our greatest wish throughout the war she says Related This -Year-Old American Is Among Hundreds of Palestinian Children Jailed in Israel Now we cherish the smallest things a meal a bed a roof over our heads It s changed how we think about life and what we prioritize she says Her words capture the quiet appreciation for life in the shadow of destruction Even as she rebuilds her life fear lingers an invisible shadow that no ceasefire can erase We survived she says but the next war could come at any moment Despite everything Sara is trying to find a sense of normalcy We must try to breathe again no matter how much pain we ve endured We were born for a reason and we have to start over with determination and bring life back again Bsaiso says All We Can Do Now Is Wait and Pray For Walaa Shublaq a -year-old architect and visual artist the announcement of a ceasefire brought a feeling she hadn t known in years a fragile fleeting elation But in the days that followed the silence was unbearable The war replayed endlessly in her mind scene after scene sound after sound While the world celebrated she felt only anger and exhaustion I couldn t even respond to messages of congratulations she says I was angry at everyone who could have stopped this bloodshed but didn t For Shublaq survival has been a burden It meant abandoning everything and everyone she loved just to stay alive running from one death to another Sometimes we envied the martyrs she says They had completed their test But for us who survived the test continues I ascertained a kind of freedom from illusion from attachment The genocide robbed her not just of her home but also her sense of self Her grandmother her friends her art her dreams all gone Now I no longer mourn the material things I lost I mourn their meaning she says But amid all that loss something shifted I discovered a kind of freedom from illusion from attachment I learned that emptiness can only be filled with light she says Among the ruins she rediscovered fragments of her past including the signed contract for her first book Shublaq still remembers images of the genocide barefoot children chasing water carts smoke from wood-fire ovens choking the air overcrowded donkey carts and the constant hum of Israeli drones Now she wants to forever forget the faces of soldiers the tanks and the nights she ran barefoot through the streets to escape death Related Dozens of Gaza Healthcare Workers Are Still Disappeared in Israeli Detention As part of the ceasefire deal more than Palestinian prisoners were distributed from Israeli prisons in October among them were two of Shublaq s brothers Anas and Abdullah They had been imprisoned for one year and eight months enduring brutal physical and psychological torture Another of her brothers Omar remains captive When my phone rang that night and I heard Walaa It s Anas your brother I broke down in tears she says On that day we waited for my brothers for long hours from the day till we conclusively met at night at p m in absolute darkness The reunion was bittersweet enjoyment shadowed by the absence of our third brother They came back older heavier with time but still radiant with life she says When sought about the future she hesitates I ve lost the ability and the desire to plan she says All we can do now is wait and pray for a vast and merciful relief Our Bodies Survived but Our Souls Didn t Asem Alnabih a former spokesperson for Gaza Municipality who s now a correspondent for Al-Araby TV approached the ceasefire with measured skepticism There is no safety he says The city is still in problem water shortages blocked streets broken sewage systems Even after the ceasefire people are living in a state of collapse and they are struggling for basic services People in Gaza often say After the war comes another war This is the reality now Asem Alnabih right and his friend Dr Refaat Alareer left who was later killed in a Dec Israeli airstrike Photo Asem Alnabih The city is still in problem water shortages blocked streets broken sewage systems Like Al-shaghnobi Alnabih stayed in Gaza City never moving to the south I slept in a car a park a building basement municipal facilities friends homes and even with strangers Displacement became part of daily life he says He describes what home means to him a place where his family could sit together peacefully coos laugh and feel safe For Alnabih the war has meant the loss of relatives friends and normalcy It took my closeness to my wife and children I ve been separated from them since before the war they were abroad It took my nephew Ahmed my niece Rasha and my brother-in-law Motaz It took my dear friend Dr Refaat Alareer one of the brightest souls I knew It left me surrounded by loss loneliness and grief Read our complete coverage Israel s War on Gaza He describes survival as a delayed death Maybe our bodies survived but our souls didn t he says Like all the people of Gaza Asem s dreams have become so simple a peaceful night s sleep a meal without fear and a meeting not torn apart by a bombing But my deeper dream is that our sacrifices decisively lead to something that we live free in our own land with dignity he continued Peace is only feasible when Palestinians receive their full rights Peace is only feasible when Palestinians receive their full rights The ceasefire may have silenced the bombs but it has not ended the war not the one inside people nor the one against their right to exist In Gaza peace is not the sound of quiet skies it is the dream of justice that remains deferred Every survivor now carries the weight of survival not as triumph but as testimony They live among ruins haunted by what was taken and what could return at any moment But even here between grief and persistence they reach for the smallest signs of life a child s laughter a brother returned home or the morning sun rising over broken walls The post Gazans Reflect on Surviving to See a Ceasefire Sometimes We Envy the Martyrs appeared first on The Intercept