Gaza’s long road ahead of healing families and society

A Palestinian woman holds the hand of her daughter in Gaza City, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. Reuters

Watching live images of the 300,000 Palestinians crossing from southern Gaza to the north, one word came to mind: “sumud”, which means steadfast while enduring hardship in Arabic.

By the terms of the three-phase ceasefire deal, day seven was the day Gazans could go home. And so, they began their Biblical walk along the coastline: the elderly limping home on their sticks; crying children carried by parents; disabled in wheelchairs being lifted by teenagers across sand. They carried mattresses, sacks, toys – small remnants left from lives ripped apart.

There were tears of mourning but also shouts of joy at being reunited with family members.

Palestinian Ahmed Badie, released by Israel after 19 years in prison, is greeted by young relatives in Qalandia, in the occupied West Bank, on January 26. AFP

Above all, there was the collective sense of deep grieving for the nearly 47,000 Gazans who lost their lives since Israel’s war began. There is also an existential grieving – for a life that many will not be able to rebuild, at least not in their lifetimes. It will take years to get Gaza back to where it was from the infrastructure point of view – it is estimated that at least 70 per cent of the structures are destroyed and more than 80 per cent of municipal buildings.

Far more challenging is how to repair the destruction of the fabric of Palestinian society. For that could take many decades.

First, however, Gazans must find a home. Since November 2023, when Israeli troops entered Gaza, the Strip was split in two. Most of the people in the north chose to flee the terrifying missile attacks to Rafah, in the south, but some – an estimated 65 per cent – chose to stay. No one was able to get back and forth across the military line known as the Netzarim Corridor, so families were separated.

The challenge of how to repair the fabric of Palestinian society could take decades. First, however, Gazans must find a home

Many of the returnees packed up their tents in Rafah and set out for Gaza city with the hopes of finding something, anything left from their previous lives. But the reality is that most will be pitching a tent over the rubble of what once was their home. The Rand Corporation told NPR that at least one million Gazans will have lost their homes.

Many are going back to find the bodies of their loved ones under rubble with a specific mission to bury them. But where? Contractors are speculating that since the Israelis used such high-intensity bombs, and most Gazan dwellings were made of concrete, a slew of cranes and bulldozers are going to be necessary to just shift the rubble.

Then there is the issue of repairing families and patching society back together. Palestinian society has taken a greater hit than Hamas’s military and political capability. And Palestinian resilience and family structure are themes I have studied and reported on since 1990: their unusual and extraordinary ability to restructure after destruction. Speaking to economists, political scientists and sociologists over the years, we have always agreed that what enables Gazans to go on are their incredibly strong family and community ties.

Palestinians make their way back to their homes in northern Gaza, on January 27. Reuters

But entire families have been wiped out. I know friends who lost 21 family members in a single afternoon. There are 19,000 orphans. My young Gazan friends who had careers that were taking off – like the rock musician Raji Al Jaru, frontman for the Gazan band Osprey V – must begin again. His family owned the beautiful music store in the centre of Gaza city, now gone. His band was beginning to get offers to travel and record in Europe and abroad. Now, Raji must start from scratch.

Or the award-winning poet Mosab Abu Toha who laboured to create the Edward Said Library in Gaza city, a wonderful place that was not only an oasis of books and music, but trained young artists, musicians and writers. Gone, the books in ashes, the lovely drawings and paintings that adorned the wall in ashes.

Other friends say they feel they lost their identity. “I love my refugee camp,” one young Palestinian writer told me back in 2022. “It taught me who I am.”

But Jabaliya, the largest and oldest refugee camp that he was talking about, has been destroyed. So has Beit Hanoun, a town in the northern tip of Gaza where I had spent time with a family who had a beautiful solar-panelled green farm, now destroyed.

Northern Gaza looks like a parking lot. The Palestinian Red Crescent today said that they are recovering decomposed bodies along Al Rashid Street in Gaza city. Worse, like southern Lebanon, also seeing a pause after months of terrible trauma, there is never going to be a permanent calm or security in Gaza. There will always be fear and the anticipation of when the next missile is coming.

US President Donald Trump’s comments that he will help clean up Gaza by sending them to Egypt or Jordan add to the anxiety and collective trauma that Gaza has already suffered.

And what of Gaza’s future? It’s not surprising that recruitment for Hamas went up during Israel’s brutal assault. Whatever one’s opinion of the group, what better way to grow momentum for a political movement than to see your land stolen, destroyed and your people annihilated? They saw the death of too many children. These societal challenges will be greater than getting electricity and water restored, and hospitals rebuilt.

For the moment, people need the basics. Sam Rose, from UNRWA, the UN-embattled agency for Palestinians, told the BBC earlier this week that aid is flowing in but it only meets the “bare minimums in terms of food, water, blankets, hygiene items. But beyond that, this is a long, long road”.

The one thing I know is that Gazans will rebuild painfully, but quickly. In the many places I have worked, I have never found more steadfast and resilient people than the Palestinians. Surviving a nakba, or catastrophe, several wars and attempts to exterminate them, they have been wounded but never broken.

Education is the core of Palestinian values. They are among the most educated people in the Middle East so schools must be rebuilt because education strengthens society. According to the World Health Organisation, about half the hospitals are out of service and others are only half functioning. Temporary clinics need to be set up immediately to control disease outbreak and malnutrition.

There must also be an immense need for psychological support, but Gaza had excellent mental health facilities. One of the first was set up during the first intifada by the late great psychiatrist Eyad Al Serraj, the Gaza community mental health centre. Juzoor for Health and Social Development is an NGO, providing help to healthcare workers, who witnessed horrors. But similar initiatives must be set up at a grassroots level for community strengthening.

Most of all, the youth will need to be empowered again. During the Israeli-enforced blockade that began in 2006, many young people still found ways to develop and thrive. But without universities and schools, without workspaces and libraries, without electricity, it’s going to be a momentous task. This is another place the international community must focus – to encourage and empower youth.

The UN speculates that Gaza needs $50 billion to rebuild the Strip. Who will do this? Mostly likely key Arab countries. The US is unlikely to supply funds, given last week’s huge cuts of foreign spending at USAID and the freezes at the State Department. The EU will help, so will the Scandinavian countries.

And the Gazans will need a workable government, and partners. The Palestinian Authority has little legitimacy among the people and suffers from mismanagement and corruption. Without a solid government in place to help rebuilding, there will be more chaos.

This is a bittersweet moment. The bombs have momentarily stopped. Fathers who stayed in the north to work as rescue workers or journalists or doctors are hugging their children again as they arrive home. But everyone in Gaza has lost someone or something; everyone is suffering from trauma.

The hallmark of the Palestinian people, however, is that they emerge from tragedies and survive. They have done it before, and they will do it again. But this time, the international community cannot turn its back on them. It must help them to rebuild their ancestral land and to give them back the dignity they have lost.

This time they need, and deserve, our help.