{"id":287124,"date":"2025-02-03T12:00:28","date_gmt":"2025-02-03T12:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=287124"},"modified":"2025-01-30T05:13:07","modified_gmt":"2025-01-30T05:13:07","slug":"exhausted-palestinians-arrive-in-gaza-city-to-no-homes-killed-family","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2025\/02\/exhausted-palestinians-arrive-in-gaza-city-to-no-homes-killed-family\/","title":{"rendered":"Exhausted Palestinians Arrive in Gaza City to No Homes, Killed Family"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Rifaat Jouda walks with his son, who has Down Syndrome, as he enters Gaza City following a long journey from southern Gaza, on 28 Jan 2025\u00a0 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash\/Al Jazeera]<\/p><\/div>\n

28 Jan 2025 – Thousands of Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza for the second day, walking kilometres to reach home.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There are many stories among the tens of thousands of people walking along Gaza\u2019s al-Rashid Street, heading for the north.<\/p>\n

In the crowds is a man with a white beard walking with determination alongside his family. In one hand, he carries a blanket and a few meagre possessions. In the other, he holds onto his adult son, who has Down Syndrome.<\/p>\n

Rifaat Jouda doesn\u2019t pretend that he isn\u2019t tired. He started his journey in the morning in southern Gaza, in Khan Younis\u2019s al-Mawasi, where his family had been displaced for 15 months during Israel\u2019s war on Gaza.<\/p>\n

The aim was to reach Gaza City, a journey finally possible since Israel allowed Palestinians in the southern Gaza Strip to travel north on Monday<\/a>, after a ceasefire began on January 19<\/a>.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a long walk \u2013 some 30 kilometres (18.6 miles) along a coastal road \u2013 and Rifaat\u2019s family were forced to stop to rest every hour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe journey has been exhausting and very difficult,\u201d Rifaat tells Al Jazeera, after finally reaching Gaza City. \u201cDespite that, we were determined to return.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rifaat is not sure of his plan now that he has returned home. His physical home, in northern Gaza City, no longer exists \u2013 he explains that it was destroyed in an Israeli attack in October.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey [Rifaat\u2019s contacts in Gaza City] say the situation is very difficult, with no water, no services, and widespread destruction,\u201d Rifaat says. \u201cBut what difference does it make? We are moving from a difficult situation to an even harder one. We will rebuild what we can. But [making the journey to return] back has lifted our spirits and renewed our hope.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Regretting displacement<\/h2>\n

Before the war began 15 months ago, the majority of Gaza\u2019s population lived in the north, centred around the enclave\u2019s biggest urban area, Gaza City. But that is also where Israel has focused its attacks, and issued forced evacuation orders early on in the war, telling people to flee to \u201csafe zones\u201d in central and southern Gaza.<\/p>\n

That led to the majority of Gaza\u2019s approximately 2.3 million population displaced in those central and southern areas, below a corridor carved out of central Gaza that Israel called Netzarim.<\/p>\n

While the destruction was overwhelming in the north \u2013 approximately 74 percent of Gaza City\u2019s buildings have been damaged or destroyed in the war \u2013 the supposed safe zones were not spared, and the areas people had fled to were also devastated \u2013 50 percent of buildings in central Gaza\u2019s Deir el-Balah were damaged or destroyed, while in southern Gaza, it was 55 percent of buildings in Khan Younis and 48 percent of buildings in Rafah.\"INTERACTIVE-WHATS<\/p>\n

The constant Israeli attacks \u2013 which killed at least 47,300 throughout the war \u2013 forced Palestinians to flee from place to place and made many feel that they should never have left Gaza City and the north in the first place.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe days of displacement were the hardest and most exhausting,\u201d Rifaat says. \u201cWe cannot imagine continuing our lives as displaced people away from our homes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAnyone who sees these crowds understands well that no plans for forced displacement will succeed<\/a>, no matter what happens,\u201d he adds, before suggesting that he may even be able to return to Ashdod \u2013 a city just north of Gaza but now in Israel \u2013 from which his family were forcibly displaced in 1948 during what Palestinians call the Nakba, or \u201ccatastrophe\u201d, with the creation of Israel.<\/p>\n

Displacement is a central motif for Palestinians \u2013 owing to the 1948 Nakba when at least 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes. Many people in Gaza itself are refugees, their families originally from towns and villages now part of Israel. And so, particularly after the experience during the current Gaza war, many regret ever having left their homes in the north.<\/p>\n

Sami al-Dabbagh, a 39-year-old heading back to Sheikh Radwan in northern Gaza, explains that he was displaced to several different areas before settling in central Gaza. The father-of-four, having walked on foot for hours, says he will never make the same mistake again.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe will never repeat the experience of displacement, no matter what happens,\u201d al-Dabbagh says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a sentiment shared by another man travelling up to northern Gaza, Radwan al-Ajoul.<\/p>\n

\u201cDisplacement has taught us never to leave our homes again,\u201d he says, as he carries his belongings on his shoulder.<\/p>\n

The 45-year-old father of eight has been living in Deir el-Balah, but like al-Dabbagh, he is also from Sheikh Radwan.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe feeling of returning is indescribable, especially since the conditions are no different between the north and the south,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

\"Man
Radwan al-Ajoul travelled from central Gaza\u2019s Deir el-Balah to Gaza City and says the feeling of returning is \u2018indescribable\u2019, on January 28, 2025 [Abdelhakim Abu Riash\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Returning without family members<\/h2>\n

Conversations on al-Rashid Street are fleeting \u2013 the people walking here have been moving for hours, trying to keep track of their family members, helping those weaker than them, and carrying the few belongings they have been able to keep a hold of after more than a year of war and displacement.<\/p>\n

But the details shared reveal the loss that Palestinians in Gaza have had to endure.<\/p>\n

Khaled Ibrahim, 52, came from Khan Younis and is headed to Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City.<\/p>\n

His family \u2013 he has four children \u2013 have no home to return to. He plans to set up a tent instead.<\/p>\n

But more than a home, he has lost those closest to him; Ibrahim\u2019s wife, granddaughter, and two of his brothers were killed in a bombing near their tent in Khan Younis last June.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur lives are hard. We have lost everything in every way,\u201d Ibrahim says.<\/p>\n

Another returnee, Nada Jahjouh, has also lost family. One of her sons was killed during Gaza\u2019s Great March of Return \u2013 in 2018, before the war. Another was killed in May during an Israeli attack. She now has one son and a grandson left \u2013 whom she carries as she walks.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are exhausted, physically and mentally,\u201d Jahjouh says. \u201cI feel very sad returning without my sons. My joy is incomplete.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Woman
Two of Nada Jahjouh\u2019s three sons have been killed by Israel, one before the war and one during [Abdelhakim Abu Riash\/Al Jazeera]<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Go to Original – aljazeera.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

28 Jan 2025 – Thousands of Palestinians have returned to northern Gaza for the second day, walking kilometres to reach home. In the crowds is a man with a white beard walking with determination. In one hand, he holds onto his adult son, who has Down Syndrome.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":287126,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[867,532,1854,2898,1199,2242,87,865,1643,1966,88,2414,2416,715,427,124,70,965,886],"class_list":["post-287124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-palestine-israel-gaza-genocide","tag-anglo-america","tag-colonialism","tag-crimes-against-humanity","tag-ecocide","tag-ethnic-cleansing","tag-famine","tag-gaza","tag-genocide","tag-genocide-convention","tag-hunger","tag-israel","tag-israeli-apartheid","tag-israeli-occupation","tag-massacre","tag-palestine","tag-united-nations","tag-usa","tag-war-crimes","tag-zionism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287124"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287124\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":287127,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287124\/revisions\/287127"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}