They daydreamed about the people they would hug as soon as the truce took hold, the graves they would visit and the homes they would rebuild.
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It is almost over, the end so close they can practically feel the keys they have kept all these months sliding into the locks of their old homes, the doorknobs turning in their hands, the beds they will sink into for their first night’s peaceful rest in more than 15 months — their own beds. Just a couple more days to go.
Two nights before the first stage of a cease-fire in Gaza was announced, Layan al-Mohtaseb, 15, dreamed of being back in her bedroom in Gaza City, cleaning it as she used to before her family fled during the war.
“This time, it feels like we’re truly going home,” she said.
That may be true only for those whose homes are still standing after months of destruction. And there is always a chance the fighting might resume after the six-week initial truce if talks over a permanent one collapsed. But across Gaza, people were daydreaming of the first moments of peace, the people they would hug as soon as the truce took hold, the graves they would visit. They already knew they would be shedding tears, tears they hardly knew whether to attribute to joy or to grief.
If Wednesday night was for celebrating the news that a cease-fire deal had been struck, the following days were for making preparations. As the Israeli security cabinet convened to vote on the cease-fire and hostage release agreement on Friday, Palestinians were calling around for trucks they could rent to move their things back to northern Gaza, or vans, or even donkey carts; they were packing up their tents, wondering where they would live if their houses were no longer there.
Fedaa al-Rayyes, 40, was already buying ingredients to make small festive sweets to welcome the war’s end. But the first thing she planned to do when the bombs and drones fell silent was to search for relatives she hadn’t seen in months, to find out who was still alive and to mourn for those who did not live to see this day.