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Al-Rashid Street, Gaza, Palestine- There are many stories among the tens of thousands of people walking along Gaza's Al-Rashid Street, heading for the North.
In the crowds is a man with a white beard who goes with determination with his family. In the one hand, he wears a blanket and several scarce possessions. In the other, he holds his adult son, who has Down Syndrome.
Rifaat Jouda does not pretend to be not tired. He began his journey in the morning in the southern part of Gaza, in Al Mavasi of Khan Einnis, where his family was displaced for 15 months during the Israeli war against Gaza.
The goal was to reach the city of Gaza, finally a possible trip, as Israel allowed the Palestinians in the southern Gaza strip To travel north on Mondayafter a The cessation of fire began on January 19S
But this is a long walk – about 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) along the coast – and the Rifaat family were forced to stop resting every hour.
“The journey was exhausting and very difficult,” says Al Jazee's Rifaat after it finally reached the city of Gaza. “However, we were determined to come back.”
Rifaat is not sure of his plan now that he returned home. His physical home in the northern town of Gaza no longer exists – he explains that he was destroyed in an Israeli attack in October.
“They (Rifaat's contacts in Gaza) say the situation is very difficult, without water, without services and widespread destruction,” Rifaat says. “But what difference is there? We move from a difficult situation to even more difficult. We will restore what we can. But (making the trip to go back) it raised our mood and renewed our hope. “
Regretting the displacement
Before the war began 15 months ago, the bigger part of the Gaza population lived north, concentrated around the largest urban area of the enclave, Gaza. But it was there that Israel focused its attacks and issued orders for forced evacuation at the beginning of the war, telling people to flee in “safe zones” in Central and South Gaza.
This led to the greater part of the approximately 2.3 million Gaza population, displaced in those central and southern regions, under a corridor carved by a central gas, which Israel called an unobtrusive.
While the destruction was captivating north – approximately 74 percent of Gaza's buildings were damaged or destroyed in the war – the alleged safe zones were not spared and the areas that people escaped were also devastated – 50 percent of the buildings in the central Gaza's Deir El-Balah part was damaged or destroyed, while in the southern Gaza was 55 percent of the buildings in Khan Einnis and 48 percent of Rafa buildings.
The constant Israeli attacks – who died at least 47,300 throughout the war – forced the Palestinians to flee from place to place and made many feel that they should never leave the city of Gaza and north in the first place.
“The days of displacement were the most difficult and exhausting,” Rifaat says. “We cannot imagine that we continue our lives as displaced people away from our homes.”
“Anyone who sees these crowds understands well that No forced displacement plans will not succeedNo matter what happens, “he adds, before suggesting that he may even be able to return to Ashdod – a city north of Gaza, but now in Israel – from which his family was forcibly displaced in 1948 during What the Palestinians call Nakba, or a “crash” with the creation of Israel.
The displacement is a central motive for the Palestinians – due to Nakba since 1948, when at least 750,000 Palestinians were forced from their homes. Many people in the gas itself are refugees, their families initially from cities and villages that are now part of Israel. So, especially after the experience during the present war in Gaza, many regret that they have once left their homes north.
Sammy Al-Dabbag, 39, headed back to Sheikh Radvan in North Gaza, explains that he was displaced in several different areas before settling in a central gas. The father of the four, after walking for hours, says he will never make the same mistake again.
“We will never repeat the displacement experience, no matter what happens,” says Al-Dabbach.
This is a mood shared by another man traveling to North Gaza, Radvan Al-Ajul.
“We have never taught us to leave our homes again,” he says as he wears his belongings on his shoulder.
Eight's 45-year-old father lives in Deir El-Balah, but like Al-Dabbag, he is also from Sheikh Radvan.
“The sense of return is indescribable, especially since the conditions do not differ between the North and the South,” he says.
Return without family members
Conversations on Al-Rashid Street are fleeting people who go here than a year of war and displacement.
But the shared details reveal the loss the Gaza Palestinians had to endure.
The 52 -year -old Khaled Ibrahim comes from Khan Einnis and heads to Bate Lahia, north of Gaza.
His family – he has four children – there is no home to return to. He plans to set a tent instead.
But more than a home, he has lost the closest to him; Ibrahim's wife, the granddaughter and two of his brothers, were killed in an attack near their tent in Khan Eunice last June.
“Our life is difficult. We lost everything in every way, “Ibrahim says.
Another returner, Nada Jajuh, also lost his family. One of her sons was killed during the great March of Gaza's return – in 2018, before the war. Another was killed in May during an Israeli attack. Now she has one son and grandson – whom she carries as she walks.
“We are exhausted, physically and mentally,” says Jajuh. “I feel very sad to return without my sons. My joy is incomplete. “
