After more than a year of forced displacement, the people of northern Gaza are finally returning home, confronting a landscape marked by both joy and overwhelming devastation.
After nearly 15 months of forced displacement, separation, and pain, joyful tears of return and reunion now fill every corner of northern Gaza.
“I cried as soon as I saw our house—not because it’s heavily damaged, but simply because I saw it,” 25-year-old Marwa Mohammed told The Palestine Chronicle. “Coming back home felt like an impossible dream.”
“I still feel like it’s unreal. Everything around me feels unreal,” she added with a sigh. “I can’t believe I’m finally home—in Gaza!”
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Marwa and her family were forcibly displaced from their home in Al-Jalaa neighborhood in October 2023. For months, they endured the hardships of moving from one shelter to another in southern Gaza. Walking nearly 12 kilometers back to the north, Marwa says the effort was worth it.
“I didn’t care how far I had to walk. All that mattered was coming back home—to my beloved place,” Marwa said emotionally. “What mattered was that this was my final displacement—I was going home.”
Although she is overjoyed to finally be home, Marwa admits that everything feels strange after so long. Having spent almost a year under the worn-out fabrics of a tent, the familiarity of living inside a house feels foreign.
“Life feels different—or maybe I’ve just forgotten what it’s like to live inside a home,” she reflected. “I forgot what it’s like to lean on a wall instead of an unstable sheet of fabric or to sleep on a bed instead of a thin mattress over sand.”
Though her family’s house has been severely damaged by heavy bombardments, Marwa remains steadfast. “I don’t care about the damage,” she said with tears in her eyes. “Feeling safe, feeling warm, and feeling at home—that’s what truly matters.”
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For 55-year-old Umm Abdullah, today feels like a true celebration.
She woke up early to clean her home and prepare to welcome her son, daughter, and their children for the first time in months. She prepared clean clothes, made sleeping arrangements, and cooked for her family.
“I was beginning to think I might never see them again,” she said, her voice heavy with emotion. “But thank God, they’re finally coming home.”
“Our resilience in northern Gaza has defeated every Israeli and American attempt to uproot and displace us,” she said firmly. “Today is historic—a milestone for Palestine and for the world.”
Umm Abdullah reflected on the unimaginable suffering they endured: “We in the north faced relentless bombings, hunger, and terror. But we remained steadfast. God kept us rooted in our land, and now, it feels like we’ve been rewarded as our people return.”
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‘Unsure about Everything’
For 3-year-old Mohammed, returning home is a strange experience.
“He’s still unsure about everything—the buildings, the floors, the doors,” said Nirmeen, Mohammed’s mother. “He doesn’t even know how to use stairs. He probably thinks they’re just piles of sand.”
After being displaced from Al-Maghazi, in central Gaza, to Al-Mawasi in the southern area of Khan Yunis, Mohammed spent 10 months living in a tent.
“He knows nothing but tents,” Nirmeen explained. “Tents crammed together, peeing in a hole dug in the sand, playing in the mud—that’s been his whole life.”
Nirmeen shared a moment of bittersweet humor: “When Mohammed first sat on a sofa, he jumped off it headfirst, thinking the floor was sand.”
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Children like Mohammed will need months, if not years, to recover from the trauma of displacement and the harsh realities of tent life. “Even now, the fear hasn’t completely left him,” Nirmeen added.
Saji, 30, remains in shock at the extent of destruction in Gaza City.
“I knew northern Gaza was like a war zone, but I never imagined this level of devastation,” Saji said.
“I can’t recognize the places or the streets. I don’t even know where one road leads or where the other ends,” he added. “The city looks completely different.”
(The Palestine Chronicle)
– Noor Alyacoubi is a Gaza-based writer. She studied English language and literature at al-Azhar university in Gaza City. She is part of the Gaza-based writers’ collective We Are Not Numbers. She contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
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