Hell and high water: Gaza waits for a ceasefire of its own

Families in the rain-soaked devastation of Gaza describe watching the news of a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon with feelings of relief, hope and, for some, the sense of having been entirely abandoned.

A general frustration has settled on the central city of Deir el-Balah, where people are exhausted from nearly 14 months of relentless Israeli assault.

Several people who spoke to Al Jazeera on Wednesday said that while they were pleased for their “brothers in Lebanon for reaching a truce”, they are waiting for their own truce.

The people in Gaza, they said, have endured hundreds of times more than what they can bear.

‘What about us?’

Maysaa Khalil, displaced from Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood to Khan Younis in southern Gaza a year ago, said that when she heard the news from her husband, she immediately asked: “What about us?”

“Why not stop both wars together so long as the same party launched them: Israel?” she asked.

“We are happy for Lebanon, of course,” she added, “but we feel that we have been forgotten.”

Meanwhile, Hamedi, originally from Beit Hanoon in the north, said he was optimistic

“I think the beginning stages [of a ceasefire in Gaza] might start in the next three, maybe four, days,” he said from the crude shelter of a tent in a camp the United Nations runs for some of the two million of Gaza’s displaced people in Deir el-Balah.

His friend Fadi echoed his upbeat mood: “[Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu has his victory. He has a ceasefire with Hezbollah. The next step will be Gaza.”

“He can negotiate more easily now,” he said of the stuttering peace talks in Cairo and Doha that have run almost for the duration of the war. “I’m not sure we’ll see any progress in the next few days, but perhaps in weeks.”

Hussein, who works for an aid agency and is originally from a village in Gaza’s north, was more measured.

“I don’t know,” he said. “We never guessed what the war was going to be like. We never guessed how bad it might be. I don’t think we’re ready to guess when it might end.”

“It’s true that many are feeling hope now that a ceasefire in Gaza might be possible. However, others are feeling entirely abandoned,” he said of the halt in Hezbollah operations launched in support of Gaza.

“Some are feeling entirely alone, as if the world has forgotten them,” he said as conditions in the blockaded enclave continue to deteriorate.

‘Gaza’s reality is different’

Overnight on Wednesday, as the finishing touches were being put on the ceasefire, Israeli strikes on a school and neighbourhoods in Gaza killed at least 15 people and injured many more.

“Throughout last night, the sounds of Israeli strikes on the central region and various areas in Gaza did not stop. This means that Israel is still continuing its war in Gaza,” Mohammed Ismail, one of the thousands displaced from Gaza’s north to Deir el-Balah, said.

He added that he was afraid the announcement of a ceasefire in Lebanon might signal further escalation in Gaza.

“The reality for Gaza is completely different,” he said. “Israel still wants to implement more plans, and there does not seem to be a real political and international will to stop the war, especially from the United States.”

As temperatures drop, the rain has begun to fall on Gaza, drenching the cloth tents of the displaced crowded into ill-equipped camps. Other people who have been forced from their homes are living in schools turned into shelters, many of which are operated by the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA).

“You can’t find plastic,” Hussein said, explaining that Israel prevented its entry into Gaza, claiming it could be used for military purposes.

Hussein couldn’t imagine what military application plastic sheeting may have.

“If you can find it, one [sheet] will cost you around 500 shekels [$136]. A tent needs three or four plastic sheets, so instead, families have to use cloth, which offers little or no protection from the cold or the rain,” he said.

In Gaza’s north, suffering an Israeli siege since early October, conditions have been described by UN officials as “apocalyptic”.

Excrement in the streets

With nearly all of Gaza’s infrastructure destroyed by Israel during the first six months of its war, displaced people have had no option but to bury sewage in what is now the sodden ground.

“You can smell it everywhere,” Hussein said of the excrement he said now runs freely down the street.

“Children have to play in it. It’s incredible.”

In a visit to Gaza in mid-November, Netanyahu, who is currently subject to an international arrest warrant on charges of war crimes, gave no indication that Israel’s war would draw down.

“We are destroying [Hamas’s] military capabilities in a very impressive manner,” he said in a video published after the visit.

He then offered a $5m reward for the recovery of each of the remaining captives held in Gaza, which the Israeli military’s killing of more than 44,000 people in Gaza has yet to produce.

Among the charges cited in the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for Netanyahu and his former defence minister Yoav Gallant is “the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare”.