Gaza's longest and deadliest war tests the renowned resilience of Palestinians

Grim reminders of destruction and death linger between conflicts in the strip

A Palestinian woman prepares some bread in a makeshift tent surrounded by rubble in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Monday. Reuters

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Tiny, impoverished and packed with people, Gaza has had to contend with far more conflict than most other places, yet its 2.3 million residents have shown a remarkable level of resilience that is difficult, if not impossible, to find elsewhere.

With the depth of their grief and frustration seemingly bottomless, Palestinians in Gaza, particularly children, have over the years shown a steely will to regain a semblance of the 'normal' life the wars had snatched away from them, making the most of disastrous situations from which it is difficult to walk away.

Since 2007 there has been one civil war and five rounds of all-out fighting between its Hamas rulers and Israel, with the last one, still continuing and proving to be by far the longest, the deadliest and most ruinous.

Given the scale of the death and destruction Israel has brought on Gaza, it is difficult to see how its residents will recover from the current war, which marked its first anniversary on October 7.

But if previous postwar years are anything to go by, there may be a chance they could manage to overcome yet another war.

The challenges are numerous, though.

A girl goes to collect clean water in a camp sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on the eve of the first anniversary of the start of the war in the Palestinian territory. AFP

This time, life in Gaza will take several years to return to where it was before the war broke out but even that rough estimate may be optimistic.

Even when Gaza is taking a break from war, there is no shortage of grim reminders of what has been inflicted on the land and its people: the grief and angst felt over relatives and loved ones who have perished; collapsed high rise buildings; the odd mosque minaret broken in two with the severed part leaning perilously on the adjacent structure; and the hundreds struggling to cope without a limb, hand or an eye lost in the senselessness of war.

Mostly drab and dusty, the tiny Gaza Strip nevertheless captivates its visitors. Maybe it is the resilient spirit of its people whose smiles conceal their anger and sadness, or the resignation of many to the tough hand they have been dealt.

In between wars or even during brief pauses in the midst of one, glimpses of normality, even celebrating life, shine through the grief and ruin left by fighting.

In those brief spells of quiet, children play on the chaotic streets of Gaza's densely populated refugee camps. They joyfully fly kites or play football on the beach. They splash around in the Mediterranean next to horses and donkeys brought to the shore to bathe.

There are also the glittering lights of the fishing trawlers that dot the horizon at night and the fishermen's jubilant return to port shortly after daybreak, grateful they survived another night out in the sea while being watched closely by trigger-happy Israeli naval boats.

And, of course, there is the catch that secures the fishermen a wage to pay rent and feed their families, and to which residents and visitors may help themselves in Gaza's austere seafood restaurants.

Displaced Palestinians with their belongings crammed on to a cart flee the northern Gaza Strip. Reuters

I have visited Gaza several times in the past two decades, including once before Israel's withdrawal from the enclave in 2005, a unilateral move that ended its occupation of the strip that lasted nearly 40 years and paved the way for the rise of Hamas to power two years later.

My visits invariably coincided with spells of heightened tension or an outright Hamas-Israel war. In all cases, they offered a useful insight into the minds of a people who have been scourged by war, their siege by Israel and, to a lesser degree, Egypt since Hamas became the territory's sole ruler in 2007.

Gaza's children, for example, showed a unique coping mechanism during the waning years of Israeli occupation. That mechanism features a bizarre mix of childlike fun and living dangerously.

In 2003, for example, Israeli soldiers patrolling a checkpoint near Deir Al Balah in central Gaza would not allow Palestinian motorists to drive past unless they were carrying at least one passenger, a requirement meant to thwart suicide car bombers who invariably drive alone.

Children as young as six or seven offered to be the passengers of lone drivers for 10 shekels ($2.65). They would hop into the passenger's seat, and get out when the car had passed the checkpoint and could no longer be seen by the soldiers. Then they would walk back and wait for the next solo motorist to come.

Slightly older children sat in foxholes they had dug to shield themselves from the soldiers and their Humvee they had spent hours pelting with rocks near a Jewish settlement. Some would raise their heads above the parapet to taunt Israeli soldiers before quickly ducking out of sight again. Others would rest under the shade of a nearby tree and trade stone-throwing stories like warriors taking a break from the front.

Occasionally, a soldier would fire into the air to disperse the children. Upon hearing the shot, alarmed mothers would come running, screaming insults at their boys and forcing them to return home. Some cried their hearts out, possibly out of the embarrassment their mothers caused them while their comrades in the serious business of fighting the occupation watched.

Members of UK Jewish groups attend a rally in London on Sunday, commemorating the first anniversary of start of the latest Israel-Hamas war in Gaza. Getty Images

My last visit to Gaza took place during the 2014 war. In the three weeks I was there, I gained first-hand experience of what it is like to be on the receiving end of bombs dropped by a jet fighter you hear only briefly, if at all, but do not see; shelling that shakes the ground under your feet and the menacing buzz of drones swallowed by the darkness of the night or invisible in daylight because they are flying so high.

A series of brief ceasefires during that war offered a chance to assess the extent of the destruction caused by Israel, as well as the human cost. Visiting the wounded at their homes, you hear harrowing stories about how easily anyone can become a victim in the most random of circumstances.

A young man who steps out on to his roof is seriously wounded when a drone hovering above fires a small rocket at him; or bored children who are hurt by shrapnel while playing on the street at night.

There are the parents who tell tearfully of their injured children; and the medics who make house calls to tend to the wounded who should normally remain in hospital but are discharged early because of a shortage of beds.

In 2014, I saw high-rise buildings engulfed in orange fireballs before they tumbled down after an air strike. Artillery shelling shattered the quiet of night and drones could be heard constantly during all hours of day and night, deepening the anxiety of Palestinians who know too well a violent death can come in a heartbeat.

Drumming during a demonstration in support of Palestinians in Gaza, ahead of the anniversary of the Hamas-Israel war, in Berlin. Reuters

In August that year, the horrors of war hit differently. Simone Camilli, a 35-year-old videojournalist from Italy, cooked pasta for everyone in the office and spoke affectionately on the phone to his partner and young daughter the night of August 13. He took the call while seated in the newsroom alongside colleagues, including myself, within earshot.

That an Italian had made pasta for his colleagues in the middle of a war zone felt special. It was not a particularly tasty pasta given that one requires ingredients that were not available in an office kitchen, but it was a welcome change from ordering takeaway.

Camilli spoke about the story he intended to follow the next day – filming members of the Gaza police bomb squad as they defused unexploded ordnance dropped by the Israelis. He asked me if I wanted accompany him but I declined due to other articles I had to write and because the idea scared me.

On the morning of August 14, the bomb the Palestinian officer was trying to defuse exploded and Camilli, his Palestinian translator Ali Shehda Abu Afash, both standing close to the officer as he worked, were killed instantly. Three members of the Gaza police were also killed and veteran news photographer Hatem Moussa was severely injured.

That night, I translated the coroner's report on Camilli from Arabic into English.