Gaza [Palestine], January 28: Gaza Strip residents expressed joy at being allowed to return to their homes in the north of the region and expressed determination to rebuild their lives.
"The dream we have been waiting for has finally come true. We are returning to our wrecked homes and to the areas that we were driven out of 15 months ago," Hassan al-Wadiya told DPA remotely.
Gaza inhabitants were interviewed by video call because Israel does not allow journalists to enter the Gaza Strip independently.
Thousands of people had camped out for days on the southern side of the Netzarim Corridor, a barrier created by the Israeli military that runs east-west right across the Gaza Strip.
"We know that we are returning to destruction and rubble, but this is our country and our home. We will never give it up," al-Wadiya says, fighting back tears. He has with him only a few bags with his personal belongings.
Marwa Omar has walked to the north along the Al-Rashid coastal road with her three children. "We have been waiting for this day for many months. Words cannot describe our feeling at this time," she says, her face radiant with joy.
"We hope that the ceasefire will hold, that there will be peace, and that life will return again to what it was before the dark hours in October," the 40-year-old woman adds.
Tawfik Ridwan is torn between joy and tears as he gazes at the ruins of his house in Gaza City's Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.
The father of five had spent more than four hours on the way there from the south. Radwan was forced to flee to Khan Younis in the south in the first week of the war.
"I never thought that I would return to the neighbourhood where I was born," he said. "We are here at last," he adds in disbelief. "I will rebuild my house from the ground, and gradually we will go back to the life that the occupation stole from us," the 30-year-old man says. (DPA)
Source: Qatar Tribune