'The danger is still here': Gazans increasingly anxious over delay to ceasefire's second stage

Residents see further withdrawal of Israeli troops as reassurance of prospects for extended peace

Members of the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, and a Red Cross team search for the bodies of Israeli hostages in Jabalia refugee camp, northern Gaza. Bloomberg

After nearly two months of waiting, Gaza’s fragile calm feels increasingly precarious. The promised second phase of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas – expected to bring about the withdrawal of Israeli forces, the return of displaced Gazan families and some restoration of normal life – has yet to begin. And for thousands of Palestinians whose lives have been put on hold, the delay is deepening fear, anxiety and exhaustion after two years of devastating war.

Across the northern Gaza Strip, residents describe living between hope and dread, watching the days tick by without clarity, while sporadic Israeli strikes and military activity continue to shake their faith in the ceasefire’s durability.

In Jabalia refugee camp, Sa’ib Abu Humaid, 38, stands regarding what used to be his home, a pile of crumbled concrete behind the "yellow line" that demarcates the area of Gaza still occupied by Israeli troops and therefore off limits to Palestinians. Despite the destruction, he longs to return.

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“Waiting for the war to end and for the second phase to begin being implemented is one of the hardest periods of waiting in my life and my family’s,” he told The National. “It has been almost two months since the ceasefire and until today the second phase has not started.”

He says recent statements by Israeli officials that appear to link the start of the next phase to Hamas’s disarmament, which was not part of the original truce terms, have left him increasingly worried. Under the agreement, the second phase would begin after Hamas has returned to Israel all of the dead and living hostages held in Gaza. The remains of one hostage are yet to be handed over.

Mr Abu Humaid was displaced to Deir Al Balah in central Gaza after his home was flattened. “I am exhausted from living on the streets, from the humiliating life of displacement,” he says. His family’s tent has been flooded repeatedly by rain and sewage. All he wants is to set up a shelter near the rubble of his home, which will be impossible until Israeli forces withdraw further to the "red line" near Gaza's border.

“The current situation is unbearable,” he says. “We just want to go back and rebuild what we can.”

In the heart of Gaza city, near Al Shawa Square, Rana Al Helou, 26, says every day feels like walking a tightrope. “I am very afraid of what’s coming because, honestly, nothing is clear,” she told The National. “Every few days we are shocked by bombings … killing people and violating the ceasefire.”

For Ms Al Helou, the first phase did little beyond improving basic food access. “The danger is still here,” she says. “Every day we fear it will get closer if a new phase doesn’t begin.”

Her neighbourhood sits close to the yellow line. “We feel the army getting closer every day,” she says. “We are waiting anxiously for the second phase so that we can live with some safety and stability.”

But with no timetable or credible signs of progress, fear fills the gaps where certainty should be. Ms Al Helou says conversations in homes, among neighbours and even between strangers revolve around the same question: what if the second phase never begins?

“We’re scared of staying stuck like this,” she says. “Or worse, that the army might resume its war on Gaza.”

Further north in Beit Lahia, farmer Musab Abu Jurad, 42, says the uncertainty is destroying the only livelihood his family has known for generations.

His family own more than two hectares of farmland, now all behind the yellow line. “We have no idea how we can make use of it because we cannot reach it,” he told The National. “For us, the second phase is like the announcement of a new life.”

Mr Abu Jurad describes the land not just as property, but as identity. “My family and I inherited this work from our fathers and grandfathers,” he says. “Every moment on the land gives us a different meaning of life.”

Like others, he fears that political delays could upend the tenuous peace. “We are worried the second phase might not begin, or that the army might resume the war against us,” he says. “There are signs that make us anxious but we try to stay hopeful.”

Hope, for him, means returning to the fields, planting, harvesting again, resuming life inch by inch.