Palestinians in Gaza use truce to pick through rubble of homes

After seven weeks of bombardment stopped in Gaza for a truce, Tahani al-Najjar used the calm on Saturday to return to the ruins of her home, smashed by an Israeli air strike that she said killed seven of her family and forced her into a shelter.

More than 24 hours into the four-day pause in fighting, thousands of Gaza residents are making that same difficult journey from communal shelters and makeshift encampments to discover what has become of their homes.

“Where will we live? Where will we go? We are trying to collect bits of wood to build a tent to shelter us, but to no avail. There is nothing to shelter a family,” Najjar said, picking through the rubble and twisted metal of her house.

Najjar, a 58-year-old mother of five from Khan Younis in the south of the enclave, said Israel’s military had also levelled her house in two previous conflicts in 2008 and 2014.

She pulled several miraculously intact cups from the ruins, where a bicycle and dust-caked clothes lay amid the debris. “We will rebuild again,” she said.

For many of the 2.3 million people who live in the tiny Gaza Strip, the pause in the near-constant air and artillery strikes has offered a first chance to safely move around, take stock of the devastation, and seek access to aid imports.

At outdoor markets and aid depots, thousands of people stood queuing for some of the aid that began flowing into Gaza in larger quantities as part of the truce.

Since Hamas fighters launched their unprecedented attack on Israeli towns on Oct. 7, killing 1,200 people, Israel’s response has been the bloodiest and most destructive offensive ever visited on the 40km-long (25 miles) Gaza enclave.