Life in rubble: Palestinian children hang laundry on the ruins of their house in Jabaliya, Gaza Strip.
| Photo Credit: AP
When night falls over northern Gaza, much of the cityscape of collapsed buildings and piled wreckage turns pitch black. Living inside the ruins of their home, Rawia Tambora’s young sons get afraid of the dark, so she turns on a flashlight and her phone’s light to comfort them, for as long as the batteries last.
Displaced for most of the 16-month-long war, Ms. Tambora is back in her house. But it is still a frustrating shell of a life, she says. There is no running water, electricity, heat or services, and no tools to clear the rubble around them.
Nearly 6,00,000 Palestinians flooded back into northern Gaza under the now month-old ceasefire, according to the United Nations. After initial relief and joy at being back at their homes — even if damaged or destroyed — they now face the reality of living in the wreckage for the foreseeable future.
“Some people wish the war had never stopped, feeling it would have been better to be killed,” Ms. Tambora said. “I do not know what we will do long-term. My brain stopped planning for the future.”
The six-week ceasefire is due to end on Saturday, and it’s uncertain what will happen next. There are efforts to extend the calm as the next phase is negotiated. If fighting erupts again, those who returned to the north could find themselves once again in the middle of it.
Costly affair
A report last week by the World Bank, UN, and European Union estimated it will cost some $53 billion to rebuild Gaza after entire neighbourhoods were decimated by Israel’s offensives against Hamas. At the moment, there is almost no capacity or funding to start significant rebuilding.
A priority is making Gaza immediately livable. Earlier this month, Hamas threatened to hold up hostage releases unless more tents and temporary shelters were allowed into Gaza. It then reversed and accelerated hostage releases after Israel agreed to let in mobile homes and construction equipment.
Humanitarian agencies have stepped up services, setting up free kitchens and water delivery stations, and distributing tents and tarps to hundreds of thousands across Gaza, according to the UN.
U.S. President Donald Trump turned up the pressure by calling for the entire population of Gaza to be removed permanently so his country can take over the territory and redevelop it for others. Rejecting the proposal, Palestinians say they want help to rebuild for themselves.
Gaza City’s municipality started fixing some water lines and clearing rubble from streets, said Asem Alnabih. a spokesperson. But it lacks heavy equipment. Gaza is filled with over 50 million tonne of rubble that would take 100 trucks working at full capacity over 15 years to clear away, the UN estimates.
Ms. Tambora’s house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya was destroyed by an airstrike early in the war, so she and her family lived in the nearby Indonesian Hospital, where she worked as a nurse.
After the ceasefire, they moved back into the only room in her house that was semi-intact. The ceiling is partially collapsed, the walls are cracked; the surviving fridge and sink are useless with no water or electricity.
Ms. Tambora said her 12-year-old son lugs heavy containers of water twice a day from distribution stations. The influx of aid means there is food in the markets and prices went down, but it remains expensive, she said.
With the Indonesian Hospital too damaged to function, Ms. Tambora walks an hour each day to work at the Kamal Adwan Hospital. She charges her and her husband’s phones using the hospital generator.
Many of her relatives returned to find nothing left of their homes, so they live in tents on or next to the rubble that gets blown away by winter winds or flooded during rains, she said.
Tess Ingram, a spokesperson with UNICEF who visited northern Gaza since the ceasefire, said the families she met are “grieving the lives that they used to live as they begin to rebuild.”
Their desperation, she said, “is becoming more intense.”
Published – February 26, 2025 12:36 pm IST