Gazans return to find little left of old lives

CAIRO/GAZA: As thousands of Gazans began picking through the ruins of their shattered homes on Friday after a ceasefire deal, the excitement of return was quickly tempered by shock at the depth of the destruction and anxiety over the hardships ahead.
The announcement that the US-brokered accord had gone into effect sent thousands of Palestinians pouring up the Gaza Strip’s coastal road by foot, bicycle, truck and donkey cart towards the largely devastated north.
Essentially all of Gaza’s 2.2 million population was displaced during two years of unrelenting war that has killed tens of thousands of people and reduced huge swathes of the enclave to ruins.
For some, the prospect of returning even to the remnants of their former houses was enough to inspire elation.
'Of course, there are no homes — they've been destroyed — but we are happy just to return to where our homes were, even over the rubble', Mahdi Saqla, 40, said as he stood by a makeshift tent in central Gaza. 'That, too, is a great joy'.
Trudging along the road along with her family, former Gaza City resident Mahira al Ashi said she was so excited to return to the city where she’d grown up that she couldn’t sleep as she waited for news about when they could start moving.
'By God, when they opened the road, I was so happy to go back”, she said.
But for many of those who have already returned, the stark reality of the situation quickly sank in.
To the south, in the city of Khan Yunis, Ahmed al Brim pushed a bicycle loaded with wood through a scene of apocalyptic destruction — row after row of buildings crumpled by bombardment and streets strewn with rubble.
'We went to our area — it was exterminated”, he said, waving a hand through the air. 'We don’t know where we will go after that”.
Another Khan Yunis resident, Muhannad al Shawaf, said it used to take him three minutes to reach a nearby street from his house. Now, took over an hour as he picked his way through piles of debris.
'The destruction is huge and indescribable — indescribable”, he said. 'It is almost all in ruins and not suitable for living in”.
The UN children's charity Unicef called on Friday for all crossings for food aid into war-shattered Gaza to be opened, saying children in the territory were especially vulnerable because they have gone without proper food for long periods.
'The situation is critical. We risk seeing a massive spike in child death, not only neonatal, but also infants, given their immune systems are more compromised than ever before', said Unicef spokesperson Ricardo Pires.
Children's immunity is low because 'they haven't been eating properly and recently at all for way too long', he said. — AFP