Our soaring hopes for a ceasefire in Gaza were crushed by Israeli tanks at Rafah

An exhausted Islamic Relief aid worker* in Gaza describes heartbreak as ceasefire hopes quickly turned to despair when Israel ordered Rafah evacuation. 

Around a week ago, I was reading the news and spotted a one-line news item saying the Palestinians accepted a deal for a ceasefire. I didn’t think much of it, expecting it would be as usual: ultimately fruitless negotiations leaving us in agony with no end.  

However, the news was on one media outlet, then another. I thought, this time looks different. Perhaps this time will be the start of the end of our suffering. I looked around to tell anyone next to me that there will be a ceasefire. My young son was the only person nearby, so I told him, “Go tell everyone there will be a ceasefire.”  

As the news broke, I heard people in our neighborhood screaming and shouting in joy. Everyone in the house came to ask me about the news. I told them it looks genuine. The celebrations were instant. The children were jumping and screaming, and the adults were just as happy. My daughter asked me if we will go home. Maybe, I said. She was so excited, saying, “I will get my toys. My cousins will return from Egypt. Will that happen tomorrow?” I said not tomorrow, but hopefully soon. Accepting that there will be a wait before she can do what she’s been dreaming of for 7 months, she joined all the other children playing happily in the street until sunset. 

We have waited a long time for an end to the suffering in Gaza 

Everyone was joyful. Nearby, in a school that has been used as a shelter for displaced families, I saw the children chanting and shouting in happiness. I noticed people talking to each other in disbelief, shock and happiness. We had waited a long time for this day. It was time for the nightmare to end. 

The next day, we woke to find Israel had issued new evacuation orders for people in Rafah. We thought this might be just to put pressure on the ceasefire negotiations going on in Cairo. But, the day that followed, I saw footage of Israeli tanks occupying the Rafah Crossing and destroying signs that said “I ❤️Gaza”. Last year, when my family returned from our trip to Türkiye, me and my children took a selfie next to one of those signs – yet more memories are being destroyed, just when I started dreaming that we would be able to travel again. This Israeli army is used to destroying everything we care about and everything we love. They will block the only remaining passage for the people of Gaza.  

Holding back tears as hopes cruelly dashed 

I felt that all the pileup of hope was just a prank. We all felt betrayed, devastated and hopeless. I felt this is the end: We will be trapped and killed in Gaza or forcibly evicted from our homes and lives, thrown into the unknown. 

I started getting calls from my friends in Rafah – they are preparing for a new journey, yet another displacement. One friend struggled to hold back tears as he described the scenes around him: people running everywhere; families walking with as many of their belongings as they can carry – some of them take their tents, mattresses, water buckets, others just clutch a bag of clothes. But these families have nowhere else to go. They stayed in Rafah thinking it was safe, hoping that the global opposition to an attack on Rafah would stop the occupying army. But in truth, the whole world has left us to be brutalized by Israel.  

In the city I am living in, abandoned buildings and empty land have filled up with tents and makeshift tents of wood and nylon. It is incredibly difficult to imagine thousands of people just walking, in desperate search for shelter – so imagine, my readers, a crowd leaving Wembley Stadium. Now double or triple that. Picture everyone carrying bags of clothes, mattresses, water buckets, gas cylinders, cans of food, maybe a solar panel or battery. All the people you see are pale, skinny, tired and afraid. There are many children and women, older people and people with disabilities being pushed on wheelchairs. There are injured people, having just left hospital, with their bloodstained bandages. 

Palestinians feel betrayed and abandoned 

Perhaps we Palestinians are doomed to relive this scene forever. Maybe we will take another journey out of Gaza as refugees, while the world watches. The ever-growing death toll, the rising rate of starvation, the number of casualties, the quantity of displaced people – the story of our suffering is peppered with numbers. We Palestinians are not just numbers, but to the rest of the world we are only pieces of news they stumble upon.  

The feeling of betrayal and being let down is taking over everyone in Gaza. We are exhausted and praying that the world will end this nightmare, but still there is no end in sight. Our destruction will go on for another round. We have to keep suffering and living this pain.  

Since Israel has taken over the Rafah crossing and the Karem Abu Salem crossing has closed, no humanitarian assistance has entered Gaza in the last week. Bakeries used to receive daily rations of fuel from the World Food Programme (WFP), but that has stopped now, and so have the bakeries. As a result, we do not have bread.  

We do not have any water supply since that also depended on fuel delivered by United Nations agencies and other international organisations. We are going to a new period of unprecedented hardship and blockade. Food, water, and electricity are all running perilously short. We are all depending on humanitarian assistance from organisations such as Islamic Relief and clinging to the increasingly fragile hope for an end to our suffering. 

Please help Islamic Relief support people in desperate need in Gaza: Donate to our Palestine Emergency Appeal now. 

*This blog is anonymised to protect the safety and security of our colleague and others mentioned. Read the other blogs in this series here. 

Editor’s note: This blog was submitted amid a fast-changing and deepening crisis. The information was correct as of Monday 13 May 2024.