Gazans anxiously await ceasefire, fearing last-minute disaster

Civilians in Gaza were anxiously awaiting a pause on Friday after 15 months of continuous fighting, as Israel’s cabinet met in Jerusalem to finalize a temporary ceasefire agreement with Hamas.

As they waited, Israel launched airstrikes on the strip, killing at least 113 people, according to the Hamas-run civil protection agency in Gaza, as the deal was first agreed in principle on Wednesday night.

The agreement, finalized on Friday afternoon, will take effect on Sunday, giving the people of Gaza a little more than 24 hours for relief.

“Time is moving more slowly than ever before,” said Dr. Abdullah Shabbir, 27, an emergency physician at Gaza City’s Baptist Hospital. “At any moment you can lose your life,” he said. “Sitting at home, walking on the street – there is no warning.”

When the news of the ceasefire agreement came on Wednesday night, Dr. Shabbir was on shift in the hospital. There was a brief moment of joy, he said, but the announcement was cut short by the beginning of a wave of air strikes less than an hour later, leaving Baptist with a flood of dead and wounded.

Every member of the staff was called. “It was as bad as we had ever seen before,” Dr. Shabbir said in a phone call from the hospital. “Serious injuries, severe burns. Of course many people died.”

Among the dead brought in Thursday was a colleague, Hala Abu Ahmed, a 27-year-old internal medicine specialist whom two of Baptist’s colleagues described as a dedicated and promising young doctor and a kind man.

Dr. Ahmed Eliwah, head of the emergency department, said he had worked tirelessly and under extreme pressure for 15 months since the war began and was killed after a ceasefire was agreed.

Many of the millions of people displaced in the strip were waiting Friday for the moment when they would be able to return home for the first time since the war began. Many people will find barren land in place of their homes.

“My house is completely destroyed, the building is gone,” said Sabreen Doshan, 45, who owned a street kiosk and lived in a residential block in Gaza City.

Doshan has lost 17 members of his extended family since the war began, he said. She was set to leave Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where she had been living in a tent, amid the ruins of her home.

“Even if I have to pitch my tent on the debris, it will be okay because I will be at home,” she said. “Now I can’t be satisfied anywhere except home.”

The destruction of the Gaza Strip is huge. According to a recent analysis by the UN Satellite Centre, 69% of all structures and 68% of roads have been destroyed or damaged as of December. According to the Hamas-run health ministry, about 46,700 people have died.

Israel planned to destroy Hamas in Gaza in October 2023, after the group attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

For Gazans, the joy of the long-awaited ceasefire is overshadowed by the scale of death and destruction. “I swear to God, it’s a mixed feeling,” said Wael Muhammad, a freelance journalist who lives in a refugee camp in central Gaza.

“From one moment to the next, from pleasure to pain,” he said. “I am happy that the flow of blood will stop, but we are living in misery.”

On Friday afternoon, the ceasefire agreement was moving through the Israeli political system for final approval. That paved the way for the release early Sunday of an initial group of three hostages in exchange for about 95 Palestinian prisoners.

But the exchange, which will run over the next six weeks, is fraught with the possibility of collapse.

“The biggest challenge is whether the ceasefire will be successfully implemented,” said Juliet Touma, communications director for the UN refugee agency UNRWA.

“If so, the challenge ahead is absolutely huge. Most shelters are overcrowded. Many people are living in the open or in makeshift structures. They lack basic needs like warm clothes. I wouldn’t call these living conditions. ” “They are not suitable conditions for humans to live in.”

In Gaza on Friday, few people were focused on Sunday, and whether they would be able to reach that relief without the deal breaking down.

“We are afraid of any change, any movement,” said Khalil Natil, 30, whose home in Jabaliya, just north of the Gaza Strip, was destroyed at the beginning of the war.

“The news is breaking,” Natil said from a shelter in central Gaza. “We’re watching and waiting.”