Fergal Keane: For Gaza survivors war will live long into the future

Since the start of the war, this work has become the entirety of Hatem Al-Atar's life. Many of those who have been bombed are his neighbors, people he grew up with.

Hatem, 25, is unmarried. His bravery is not reckless, nor is it born of ignorance. He is fully aware that he could die at any moment. “Since October 7th, every day of the war has been difficult. Every second of the war has been difficult. You can lose your life at any moment, or lose someone you love,” Hatem said.

He sits with his comrades in the civil defense office in Deir al-Balah. They chat and look at their phones. Everyone is a survivor. They have lost 94 comrades and over 300 have been injured, nearly half of the civil defense organization in Gaza. For Hatem, death was as close as the explosion that blew him out of a house near Nasser Hospital.

“There were people injured and killed around the house,” he recalls, “I went in to see if anyone was alive or dead. As soon as I went inside, a reconnaissance missile hit the house.” Video footage taken by a colleague shows him striding into the building, flames on his left. Then there is a loud bang, smoke billows, and a man stumbles out, but it is not Hatem. His friends went back inside and dragged him out. He coughed and needed help to stand. But he survived.

Others close to him have not been so fortunate. On March 14th last year, as Ramadan began, he received a call from his brother at four in the morning. In times of war, no one in Gaza calls at that hour with good news. “He told me that our house in Bureij had been hit and that my father had died.” Hatem went to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah, where a family friend took him to the morgue. “When I got there, my father was lying on the floor with eight other bodies. They were my sister-in-law and her seven children! I was in shock.”

Despite this, Hatem continues to go to the sites of explosions, to collapsed buildings, to ruins that bury the dead and the occasional living. He pulls out bodies, and parts of bodies. Then, the bombing and the shooting stopped. It was the first night without airstrikes. Now it was possible to start thinking about what had been absent for the past 15 months - the future.

His thoughts turn to education and love. “With the agreement, I should think about what to do next. Once the universities resume, I will continue my university studies. I am single, but I will think about getting married.” To tell the story of how the people of Gaza are experiencing this war, my BBC colleagues and I have relied on the tireless efforts of local journalists working on our behalf.

Israel has banned foreign media from independently entering Gaza to report on the war. BBC's local journalists have been on the streets almost non-stop over the past 24 hours, capturing the mood in Gaza during the truce: a gunman stands in the road in Nuseirat in central Gaza, firing into the air; Hamas fighters and police have reappeared; another group a few yards away shoot into the sky; crowds gather at junctions and corners; a man kneels to kiss the ground.

But all of this is happening against a backdrop of rubble. Trucks and cars crawl by, piled high with people's belongings. Some are using donkey carts to haul what possessions have survived multiple displacements. There are thousands of journeys in Gaza today. Some are underway, some exist in the imagination. All directions are – home.

Professor Jumaa Abu Sheha arrived at what was left of his home in Nuseirat. First, he said, the feeling of being alive was “indescribable.” He silently prayed: “God is the best disposer of our affairs.” He repeated the phrase as he moved from one ruined room to another. His wife and several children followed closely behind. The walls were blown out, and the interior was riddled with machine gun and shrapnel marks.

Professor Abu Sheha described how he built the house “brick by brick,” painted it, and cherished the moment he brought his family to live there. “I cannot find a house, I can only see destruction, not a house,” he said, “I did not expect this. I expected to return to a house, to find a place that shelters me and my children.” He pointed to his daughter’s room and his son’s room, once carefully decorated, now destroyed. “The feeling is indescribable,” he said.

The task of rebuilding is immense. The UN and aid agencies have repeatedly accused Israel of obstructing the flow of aid; the US at one point threatened to limit military aid to Israel unless more aid was allowed into Gaza. Israel denies restricting aid. Aid trucks have been entering the Gaza Strip all afternoon. This included a convoy of aid from the Jordanian Hashemite Charity Organization, whose journey from Amman to Gaza we reported last week.

Forklifts are moving tons of medicine and food into Gaza to help nearly two million displaced people – about 90% of the population. This aid is tangible help. It can be weighed, counted, loaded, and eventually distributed. People can receive food and medicine. But there is another challenge, the need is vast, and it will have a profound impact on the future of Gaza.

The war has left an unknown number of traumatized adults and children. We have documented some of their stories, but we are also aware that there are thousands more stories yet to be told. Children have suffered terribly. According to a survey of 504 children’s caregivers by the UK charity War Child, 96% of children felt that death was imminent. The interviews also found that 49% had a wish to die. Our journalists have frequently heard young survivors say that they wish they could be reunited with their dead mothers, fathers, or siblings.

Ten-year-old Amr Al-Hindi was the only survivor of an Israeli strike on the building where he lived in Beit Lahia last October. Our colleagues in the area filmed Amr in the hospital shortly after the attack. The floor around him was covered in injured people. A woman sat there with blood seeping from her ear. Nearby, a man had just died. “Where is Sharif?” Amr asked repeatedly. A nurse told him Sharif was fine. “I’ll take you upstairs to see him.” But his brother Sharif did not survive. Neither did his other brother, Ali, his sister, Asel, his mother and father. The whole family was gone.

Just after the truce was announced, we went back to see how Amr Al-Hindi was doing. He was staying with his grandparents, who clearly loved him with care and tenderness. The child had three toes amputated after the blast, but he managed to walk normally. Amr sat on his grandfather's lap and looked directly into the camera. He was still very calm, as if looking out from behind a thick protective barrier. He began to talk about his brother Ali, and how he wanted to go to Jordan to study to become a doctor.

“I want to be like Ali. I want to fulfil his dream and go to Jordan to become a doctor,” he said. But at those last words, tears began to fall, and he began to sob. Amr’s grandfather kissed his cheek; he said “habibi,” and patted his chest. In that moment, one understood that there are many wars here. Some have been paused. And others, for the survivors, will continue for a very long time.