Palestinians in Gaza welcomed the announcement of a deal between Hamas and Israel overnight, but many have questions about what it will mean for them, their loved ones and their devastated communities.

The situation had not changed in any material way on Thursday morning — food, water and medicine remained scarce and their cityscapes remained ruined — but there were reasons for hope.

“We still don’t understand anything,” said Awni Sami Abu Hasera, 36. He has been living in a shabby tent in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, since fleeing Gaza City, where an Israeli ground offensive destroyed his home and once thriving seafood business last month.

“We’re still waking up,” he said. “I don’t see a ceasefire yet.”

It was hard to fathom what the deal might mean for his family, he said, but even if the fighting were to stop, staying in the devastated enclave was not an option.

“As soon as the borders open, I will take my family and leave, anywhere, it doesn’t matter,” he said. “I can’t describe to you what life in a tent and life in displacement really mean.”

Dr Ahmed al-Farra, head of the paediatric ward at Nasser Hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis, said that no new patients had arrived on Thursday morning as a result of Israeli attacks. But no matter what happens, he said, he expected Gaza’s severely strained hospitals to remain overwhelmed.

Dr al-Farra said that the experience of earlier ceasefires in Gaza, which all eventually gave way to renewed fighting, had left him wary.

“We hope this is true and that the war has really stopped,” he said.

In Deir al-Balah, Mohammed Fares, 25, had similar concerns. He said he was feeling a mix of both joy and fear. The deal seemed too good to be real, he added.

“I’m so happy and I’m thinking about returning to Gaza City, but I also worry that there will be another installment of the war,” said Fares, who fled the city for the relative safety of Deir al-Balah earlier in the war.

But, like Abu Hasera, he said he thought that the future would contain no shortage of Palestinian suffering with “so many things totally ruined and destroyed”.

“It will take decades to make Gaza a humane place to live,” Fares said.

Others were more optimistic.

Mohammad al-Atrash, 36, said that he felt relief and gratitude “to all the countries that helped end the war”, even though it was not clear if the agreement reached overnight in Egypt would bring the conflict to a firm end.

Al-Atrash said that he had nearly been killed twice in the war, which had destroyed normal life in Gaza for him and his family. His children had been out of school for two years, he said.

If the war were to end, he said, it “will ease much suffering”.

“God willing,” he added, “this announcement means it won’t return.”

Hamas risks

Hamas took a significant risk by agreeing to release the remaining hostages in Gaza, giving up much of the leverage it has with Israel with no certainty that it would achieve all of what it wanted in return.

The Palestinian militant group had long said it was willing to release all the hostages in exchange for the complete withdrawal of Israeli military forces from Gaza, a
permanent end to the war and the release of Palestinian prisoners. The deal reached on Thursday only guarantees one of those three things: the prisoner release.

There is no certainty it will lead to the end of the war and, initially, it only provides for a partial withdrawal of Israeli forces.

New York Times News Service