For the survivors of Gaza, the war will live long into the future

Since the start of the war, work has become his life. Many of the people he bombed were his neighbors, people he grew up with.

Hatem Al-Atar, 25, was not married. His courage was not careless, or born of ignorance. He knew he could die at any moment.

“War every day from October 7 so far they were difficult. Every second of this war was hard. You can lose your life, a loved one at any time,” says Hatem.

He is sitting in the civil defense office in Deir al-Balah with his colleagues. They chat and check their phones. Each one survived.

Ninety-four of their comrades were killed. More than 300 were wounded – almost half of Gaza’s civil defense organization.

For Hatem, death was as close as the explosion that blew him off his feet in a house near Nasser Hospital.

“There were people injured and dead around the house,” he remembers.

“I went in to check if anyone was there, dead or alive. Once I did, a reconnaissance missile hit the house.”

Footage taken by a colleague shows them entering the building step by step. A fire is burning on the left side of the frame.

Then there’s a loud explosion, clouds of smoke, a man stumbles out, but it’s not Hatem.

His friends get in and drag him out. He is coughing and needs to be restrained. But he survives.

Others close to him were not so lucky.

On March 14 last year – the beginning of Ramadan – he received a call at four in the morning from one of his brothers.

In Gaza, during the war, no one called with good news at that time.

“He told me that they hit our house in al-Bureij and killed my father.”

Hatem went to al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah and met a family friend who directed him to the mortuary.

“When I went there, my father was lying on the ground next to eight other bodies. It was my sister-in-law and her seven children! I was shocked.”

Still, Hatem continued on, to the site of the explosions, the collapsing buildings, the rubble that buried the dead and occasionally the living. He took out bodies, and body parts.

Then came the time when the shelling and shooting stopped.

The first night without an air raid. Time to start thinking about something that hasn’t been guaranteed for the past 15 months: the future.

Her thoughts turn to education and love.

“With the deal, I’d have to think about what to do. I’ll go to university once the universities open up. I’m single but I’ll think about getting married.”

To try and tell the story of how the people of Gaza have experienced this war, myself and my BBC colleagues have depended on the tireless efforts of local journalists working for us.

Israel banned foreign media from entering Gaza to report on the war independently.

Local BBC journalists have been on the streets almost non-stop for the past 24 hours, capturing the mood in Gaza during the ceasefire: a gunman standing on the Nuseirat road in central Gaza firing into the air; Hamas fighters and police re-emerge; a few meters down the road another group of men shooting into the sky; the crowd that gathers in the cross streets and on the corners; a man kneeling and kissing the ground.

But all this is happening against the backdrop of devastation. Trucks and cars pass by, bored with people’s belongings. Some use donkey carts to transport the goods that have survived their multiple migrations.

There are hundreds of thousands of trips in Gaza today. Some are actually running. Others exist in the imagination. They all have one direction: home.

Professor Jumaa Abu Shiha arrives at what remains of his home in Nuseirat.

First of all, he says that the feeling of having survived is “indescribable”. He prays to himself: “God is the best master of our affairs.”

He repeats this as he goes from one ruined room to another. He is survived by his wife and several children.

The walls explode. The interior has machine guns and shrapnel markings.

Professor Abu Shiha built the house “block by block”, how he painted it and cherished the moment he moved his family here.

“I can’t find a house, I only see destruction not a house,” he says. “I didn’t expect this. I was hoping to go back to a home and find a place to protect me and my children.”

He points to his daughters’ room, and his sons’ room, so carefully decorated and now in ruins. “The feeling is indescribable,” he says.

There is a lot of rebuilding ahead. The UN and aid agencies have done it time and time again accused Israel of obstructing the flow of aid; The US at one point threatened to limit military aid to Israel if more aid was not allowed to Gaza. Israel denies cutting aid.

Throughout the afternoon, aid trucks were crossing the strip. Among them was a convoy from the Jordan Hashemite Charitable Organization, which we reported last weekOn the journey from Amman to Gaza.

Forklift trucks moved tons of medicine and food to help the nearly two million displaced in Gaza – about 90% of the population.

This support is material support. It can be weighed, counted, loaded and ultimately distributed. People can be fed and given medicine. But there is another challenge, the demands of which are enormous and which will have a profound effect on the future of Gaza.

War has created untold numbers of traumatized adults and children. We recorded some of their stories but they are aware of tens of thousands more that remain unaccounted for.

Children have suffered acutely. According to a survey of 504 childcare providers, UK charity War Child96% of the children felt that death was imminent.

In the interviews, 49% also wanted to die. Our reporters have often heard young survivors say that they would like to be reunited with their deceased mother, father or sibling.

Ten-year-old Amr al Hindi was the only survivor of the Israeli strike on the building where he lived in Beit Lahia last October. Our colleague nearby filmed Amr in the hospital immediately after the attack.

The surrounding floor was covered with wounded. A woman was sitting with blood pouring from her ear. A man had just died nearby.

“Where’s the Sheriff?” Amr asked again and again. A nurse told Sherif that he was fine. — I’ll take you upstairs to see him. But Sherif, his brother, did not survive. Not his other brother, Ali, or his sister Aseel, not his mother and father. The whole family went.

Immediately after the ceasefire agreement was announced we went back to see what happened to Amr al Hindi. He lived with his grandparents, and it was clear that they loved him with care and tenderness. The child had three of his feet amputated after the bombing, but was managing to walk normally.

Amr sat on his grandfather’s lap and stared directly into the camera. He was still and quiet, as if he were watching from behind a thick protective screen. He started talking about his brother Ali and wanted to go to Jordan and study to become a doctor.

“I want to become like Ali. I want to fulfill his dream and travel to Jordan to become a doctor,” he said. But at the last words the tears began to fall and he began to sob.

Amren’s grandfather kissed her on the cheek; “Honey” he said and patted her chest.

At this point it is understood that there are many wars here.

Some are paused. Others, for the survivors, who will live long into the future.

With additional reporting by Alice Doyard, Malaak Hasona and Adam Campbell.