Returnees smiling and chanting despite finding massive destruction
You can’t imagine how happy Palestinians are, especially with the fact that they can move freely now.
I am in Rafah right now, on one of the main roads connecting Khan Younis to Rafah.
The destruction is massive. For the first time since May, when the Israeli army invaded Rafah, Palestinians have the chance to come to their houses. And they’ve come and found it shocking that their houses are reduced to rubble.
To the right of me, a man is just sitting on top of his bombed house; another family is trying to clean up and gather whatever’s left of their houses in order to bring back their relatives. They say that they’re going to clean up, remove all of the rocks, see if there are any bombs or shrapnel left, and then bring their families back.
This is the atmosphere now; everyone’s going back to their houses and neighbourhoods.
I met very young children, one of them told me, “I know my house is bombed, but I just want to see it.”
But I also met Palestinians coming back from Rafah to tell their families the fact that the destruction is massive, that they did not even realise where their neighbourhoods were and they were searching for them.
So Palestinians are now going to be very busy rebuilding, painting, and fixing whatever is left of their houses and whatever they have left.
But people are also very happy; you see everyone smiling, you see everyone chanting, and most of the Palestinians are saying, “We made it alive out of this war.”
Displaced Palestinians return to Rafah
The view from the rubble of Jabalia refugee camp
Journalist Jihad Abu Shmaleh has shared a video on Instagram, in which he is calling to prayer from atop one of the destroyed homes in Jabalia refugee camp, in northern Gaza.
The view captured in the video, which has been verified by Al Jazeera, shows the mass destruction of Jabalia stretched as far as the eye can see.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFAMWaON28I
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