Palestine

Tens of thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters have marched in London, expressing scepticism and cautious hope as a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza has entered its second day.

“We’re … sharing the relief of the Palestinian people,” said Ben Jamal, director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, which has organised mass monthly pro-Palestinian rallies in London since the start of the war on October 7, 2023.

“But we also come here sharing their trepidation that this ceasefire will not hold, rooted in the knowledge that Israel has violated every ceasefire agreement it’s ever signed,” Jamal told the AFP news agency on Saturday.

Despite concerns about United States President Donald Trump’s proposed plan to end the war on Gaza, which calls for a transitional authority ultimately headed by the US leader, Jamal said there was an “immense sense of relief”.

A sea of red and green, the colours of the Palestinian flag, formed along the embankment of the River Thames in central London, where the largely peaceful march began.

Protesters donned black and white keffiyeh scarves, carried signs saying “Stop Starving Gaza” and “Stop the genocide”, and chanted “Free Palestine” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

Police removed several pro-Israel protesters from the crowd.

Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands, reporting from the rally in London, said there has been “no cease to the demonstrations … in the UK expressing solidarity with Palestine”.

Challands said that while 32 such protests have been held so far, Saturday’s was a “huge one” as protesters came from all over the country.

People travelled to the capital on buses and trains from cities including Bristol, Cambridge and Sheffield.

The government in the UK has been making it increasingly difficult for pro-Palestine demonstrations to take place and wants the police to have more power to restrict such gatherings, Challands noted.

Last weekend, London police arrested at least 442 people at a rally in support of the proscribed group Palestine Action in central London.

Israel’s two-year war on Gaza has killed more than 67,000 people, according to Palestinian health authorities, and caused a humanitarian crisis. Famine conditions were declared in some parts of the besieged territory last month, and a UN commission has accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza.

Challands said people were sceptical that the latest ceasefire would hold for a “significant amount of time”.

“They are worried about the perseverance of US President Donald Trump,” he said.

Katrina Scales, a 23-year-old sociology and psychology student attending the rally, said the ceasefire was “not enough” and she planned to keep attending marches.

“I’m here with my friends to help show that there is continuously eyes on Gaza, even considering the current ceasefire,” she said.

Trade unionist Steve Headley, in his 50s, said he is also unconvinced.

“Hopefully now we’ve got the first steps towards peace, but we’ve been here before,” Headley told AFP. He questioned Trump’s “plans for a ‘Riviera’ in Gaza” that the US president touted this year.

For 74-year-old Miranda Finch, part of a group marching under the banner “descendants of Holocaust survivors against Gaza genocide”, the ceasefire was “very little”.

“The Palestinians are not going back to nothing. They’re going back to less than nothing. Rubble on top of bodies on top of sewage.”

Fabio Capogreco, 42, who was attending his fifth demonstration with his two children and wife, said the ceasefire was “too little, too late”, adding that those complicit in the war need to be held accountable.

“Hopefully it’s one of the last times we need to come here to manifest,” the bar manager said. “But I think it’s too early to say everything is OK.”

Protests were also planned later on Saturday in other European cities, including Berlin. A march is also expected on Sunday in Sydney, Australia, where pro-Palestine demonstrations have filled streets in recent weeks.

Activists campaign to suspend Israel from European football, calling for accountability for genocide.

Calls for Israel’s suspension from European football have been renewed a day after the ceasefire in Gaza came into effect and as the Israeli team has resumed its qualification campaign for the FIFA World Cup 2026.

The human rights campaign group Game Over Israel urged UEFA on Saturday to suspend Israel until it ends its abuses against Palestinians.

With the ceasefire in Gaza coming into effect on Friday, Ashish Prashar, a campaign director at Game Over Israel, stressed the need to hold Israel accountable for its conduct.

He said Israel has “no place in international football” after the horrors it unleashed on Gaza, which leading rights groups and United Nations investigators have described as a genocide.

“Even if bombs and bullets stop, genocide is a crime against humanity and perhaps the gravest crime a state or project can commit,” Prashar told Al Jazeera.

“Remember what Europe did after World War II. Nazi Germany was suspended from football, and the Nuremberg trials took place.”

Game Over Israel has been using billboards in major cities across the world to drive home that message. The latest billboard was revealed in Milan and addressed to UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin.

“Israel is committing genocide. Suspend Israel now. It’s your moral obligation,” it said.

The campaign also conveyed the same message in a full-page ad in the Los Angeles Times on Saturday.

From Times Square to MILAN 🇮🇹, football fans have had ENOUGH! ‼️😡 Stop allowing football to sports-wash genocide. The world sees through it and we’re demanding a full Israeli boycott across football. The Federations can’t hide anymore. Suspend Israel.#GameOverIsrael @UEFA pic.twitter.com/pbQSmn1pia

— gameoverisrael (@gameover_israel) October 11, 2025

John Dugard, former UN special rapporteur on Palestine, said it remains legally necessary and urgent for UEFA to ban the Israel Football Association (IFA).

“By continuing to host Israeli teams, UEFA risks becoming complicit in the normalisation of war crimes,” Dugard said in a statement.

“We urge you to uphold the integrity of the sport and immediately suspend the IFA and all affiliated teams from UEFA competitions until Israel ends the genocide and its unlawful occupation, and fully complies with its obligations under international law.”

In addition to the atrocities in Gaza, Israel allows teams based in settlements in the occupied West Bank, which are illegal under international law, to compete in its professional leagues in violation of FIFA rules.

“Member associations and their clubs may not play on the territory of another member association without the latter’s approval,” FIFA statutes read.

There is international consensus, backed by UN resolutions and International Court of Justice opinions, that the West Bank is Palestinian territory illegally occupied by Israel.

Both FIFA and UEFA suspended Russia days after it launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

“Mass imprisonment is a red line. Systematic torture is a red line. Illegal occupation is a red line. Apartheid is a red line. And genocide is the reddest line of all,” former UN official Craig Mokhiber said in a statement.

“Israel has crossed too many of humanity’s red lines to be granted a pass. To normalise this now would mean complicity in shepherding in a new era of horror for our world.”

This month, more than 30 legal scholars penned a letter to Ceferin emphasising the need to ban Israel.

Hundreds of Norwegian fans protested against Israel before their national team’s game against Israel on Saturday, waving Palestinian flags and banners accusing Israel of apartheid and genocide.

The match ended in a thumping 5-0 win for Norway. Israel now sits in third spot in Group I of the UEFA qualifiers before its match against Italy on Tuesday and has a razor-thin chance of booking a playoff spot for the World Cup.

The United States, which will co-host next year’s tournament alongside Canada and Mexico, has said it will block any attempts to ban Israel from the World Cup should it qualify.

Israel has never qualified for the FIFA World Cup on a European quota. It did so in 1970 from Asia.

UN special rapporteur on right to housing says Palestinians returning to destroyed northern Gaza face ‘profound trauma’.

Israel must allow tents and caravans to immediately be delivered to the Gaza Strip, a United Nations expert says, as displaced Palestinians returning to the north of the bombarded territory have found their homes and neighbourhoods destroyed.

Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, said people are finding nothing but rubble in areas from which Israeli forces have withdrawn in northern Gaza.

“The psychological impacts and trauma are profound, and that’s what we are seeing right now as people are returning to northern Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been streaming back into Gaza’s north after Israeli forces pulled back on Friday as part of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to halt the two-year conflict.

Palestinians across the coastal enclave have welcomed the suspension of Israel’s bombardment, which has killed more than 67,700 people since October 2023 and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis.

The UN estimated that 92 percent of all residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have been forced to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.

Rajagopal noted that tents and caravans were meant to be delivered to Gaza during a ceasefire early this year but “almost none” of them was allowed in due to Israel’s strict blockade.

“That is really to me the crux of the issue right now. Even immediate relief and aid to the people of Gaza is not possible unless Israel stops controlling all the entry points. That is essential,” the UN expert told Al Jazeera.

Rajagopal, who has used the term “domicide” to describe the decimation of homes across the Strip, said the destruction of housing in Gaza has been a central component of Israel’s genocide against Palestinians.

“The destruction of homes and clearing people from the area and making the area uninhabitable is one of the main ways in which the act of genocide has been committed,” he said, adding that the recovery process will ultimately take generations.

“It’s like another Nakba,” he said, referring to the ethnic cleansing of Palestine when Israel was created in 1948. “What has happened in the last two years is going to be something similar.”

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud and Ibrahim al Khalili followed Palestinians making their way back to northern Gaza after a ceasefire deal was announced.

Tens of thousands of forcibly displaced Palestinians are making their way back to devastated areas in northern Gaza as Israeli forces stop operations as agreed under phase one of the ceasefire plan with Hamas, and partially withdraw.

Gaza’s al-Rashid Street, which has witnessed massive population movements northward and southward over recent months as Palestinians fled Israeli attacks, is once again witnessing a tide of humanity on the move.

Now, with the ceasefire in effect and Israeli forces withdrawn from the Netzarim Corridor that previously divided the road, tens of thousands of Palestinians are journeying north – hoping this time to return permanently.

“Once again [displaced Palestinians] are taking the same exact road, the only lifeline for Palestinians now to go back to their homes in Gaza and the northern part [of the enclave],” reported Al Jazeera correspondent Hani Mahmoud from the central Gaza coastal highway.

Mahmoud noted that the critical highway has been extensively damaged by Israeli bulldozers, creating a difficult passage for those carrying their belongings.

Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, reporting from Al Nuseirat, Gaza, said: “Since this morning, we have seen families walking towards Gaza City. We saw children, women, elderly, cars, vans, donkey carts loaded with furniture. Families removed their makeshift tents to take and reset them over the ruins of their destroyed homes in Gaza City.”

These residents were originally forced to abandon Gaza City due to bombardment, only to find overcrowded conditions in central and southern Gaza upon arrival.

“While this return marks a historic moment, it must be accompanied by substantive measures to address the humanitarian crisis,” Abu Azzoum added.

Most returnees are discovering barely any intact buildings in Gaza City following Israel’s relentless bombardment and ground invasion there. There is now an urgent need for temporary shelters and mobile housing units for these returning families.

Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza has killed at least 67,211 people and wounded 169,961 since October 2023. A total of 1,139 people were killed in southern Israel during the October 7, 2023, attacks and about 200 were taken captive.

After two years of bombardment and displacement, Gaza’s children speak of fear, loss and relief as the ceasefire takes hold. Many of them remain displaced, clinging to hope of returning home and rebuilding their lives.

HAMAS does not believe in peace and still poses a chilling threat to the West, analysts have warned.

The terror group signed up to Trump’s peace plan which says it must disarm, but has not specifically pledged to do so – and experts have taken this as a bad omen.

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A ceasefire officially came into force on Friday – clearing the way for the first phase of Donald Trump’s sweeping peace plan to return the hostages and demilitarise Gaza.

The US announced it would deploy up to 200 troops to Israel to help support peacekeeping efforts in Gaza.

However, signs of trouble are already brewing after a Hamas official rejected the idea of Tony Blair running the strip – one of Trump’s cornerstone measures.

Egyptian-born scholar Dalia Ziada said the much-heralded Gaza ceasefire could prove a deadly illusion.

Ziada, who defied her country’s consensus by backing Israel and was forced to flee after death threats, told The Sun: “Part of me is very happy because finally this brutal war is coming to an end.

“The hostages will be returned. The people in Gaza will be relieved from the horrors of the war.

“Hamas is obviously defeated to the point that they had to finally accept a ceasefire deal.”

But she praised Washington’s muscular return to Middle East power politics: “I am excited to see the United States coming back to the Middle East with its heavy weight and being involved on that level as a partner.”

Ziada’s optimism about a deal stops there, however – warning that the world is underestimating the nature of the enemy.

“This deal is being made with a terrorist organisation, Hamas,” she said.

“Hamas adopts the jihad ideology, violent resistance ideology. They do not believe in peace.”

Even the language, she noted, betrays Hamas’s intent.

“Actually, what they believe in is Hudna. Hudna is truce,” Ziada explained.

“It’s mainly: ‘Let’s take a break so we can rearm, regroup and come back and kill you again’.”

Hussain Abdul-Hussain, an experienced war journalist and researcher, agrees that Hamas will “absolutely not” honour disarmament.

He pointed to their reluctance throughout negotiations to relinquish weapons – and emphasised they have agreed to “freeze their activity and take a break” rather than “give this up for good”.

Abdul-Hussain believes the ceasefire will hold for a while, but not forever.

He ominously warned: “It [fighting] will come back. We just don’t know when.”

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Ziada argues that Hamas only accepted Trump’s ceasefire plan because they ran out of options.

She said: “Actually, it’s the last card in Hamas’ hands. The last card in Hamas’ hands was hostages. And that’s why they did everything they can to avoid giving away this card.

“But now Hamas has no other option but to accept, especially after President Trump’s very clear and very direct threatening to them that in case they do not agree, there will be total obliteration.”

But the deal is being struck with “Hamas leaders in suits” in Doha, not the hardened fighters still embedded in Gaza.

That split could prove explosive.

Ziada warned: “I don’t expect that the militia on the ground will be very cooperative.

“We started to see the first sign of this lack of cooperation from the very confused reports coming out of Hamas.”

‘Heavyweight murderers’ loose on the streets

While the remaining Hamas leaders have decided to make enough of the right noises to satisfy the peace deal conditions, they have had no contact with the prisoners who are to be released from Israeli jails.

As part of the deal, Israel will release 250 life sentence prisoners – who likely harbour a severe grudge against Israel and the West.

Richard Pater, CEO of the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre (BICOM), said: “250 heavyweight murderers, Palestinian terrorists, are being released,

“They’re not being released back into the West Bank and they’ll never be allowed to enter Israel – but some of them are going to be moved to Gaza.”

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He said it is a major concern that one of the released convicts will become the new Yahya Sinwar – the terrorist mastermind of October 7.

Sinwar was himself released in a similar prisoner exchange.

Pater fears this deal is “kicking the can down the road”, because “there will be the motivation and the ability of these hardened terrorist leaders to potentially rebuild”.

‘Zero trust’

Asked whether she believed Hamas would stick to the deal, Ziada was brutally clear: “There are no guarantees. First of all, I have zero faith or zero trust in Hamas.

“One hundred per cent. I mean, zero, zero trust in Hamas.”

Even with heavyweights like Egypt, Qatar and Turkey leaning on Hamas to comply, she believes this first stage — halting fighting and releasing hostages — will be the easy part.

The rest of Trump’s 20-point peace plan will be far harder.

She said: “This is, by the way, the easiest step because this is mainly about stop the war, release the hostages, exchange prisoners. That’s it.

“The most difficult part is the other 19 points on the plan.”

Pater warned “there are 101 problems that can still occur” throughout stages two and three of the peace plan – when Hamas is supposed to disarm and the IDF eventually withdraw entirely.

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‘They will never disarm’

If anyone imagines Hamas laying down its weapons, Ziada said, they are deluding themselves.

“At this moment Hamas did not say very clearly that they will disarm,” she said.

“They will not disarm under any condition or any pressure. I cannot even picture it like Hamas going and handing their weapons because this means their end.”

Even a temporary pause in violence could serve to revive Hamas’s jihadist ambitions.

“Hamas was drained in the past month to the extent that they started to reach out to the camps of the people displaced inside Gaza and recruit teenagers,” Ziada revealed.

“This will once again revive Hamas appetite to go back to this jihadist struggle.”

And Hamas has already signalled its intent.

Ziada said: “Only days ago in the anniversary of October 7, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad issued a celebratory statement wherein they said, ‘we will continue our Jihad, we will continue our violent resistance’.”

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The terror within

Ziada’s most chilling warning, however, goes far beyond Gaza.

She said the threat has now metastasised into Western societies themselves.

“People are so focused on Gaza like we are all zooming in into Gaza, but we fail to see the consequences of what the past two years has done to our world,” she said.

“The threat to the UK is coming from inside the UK. The threat to the US security is coming from inside the US.

“The attack on the West will continue — the attack on Western values and Western principles and Western way of life will continue in different forms, either by violence or even through nonviolent means as we see in political arenas.”

Abdul-Hussain reminded us that violent Islamist attacks predate October 7, and similarly warned that threat is not going away.

He said: “This is an issue that the West will have to deal with, with or without peace or ceasefire or whatever arrangement exists between Israel and the Palestinians.

And Pater insisted that the UK needs a programme of deradicalisation just as much as Gaza.

He said: “For example, the UK banning the Muslim Brotherhood movement, proscribing it as a terror organisation, not being afraid to call out Islamic extremism for what it is, will be important steps to deradicalise the population.”

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“Palestine has become the all-encompassing flag and image for this Islamist global movement. But this movement exists.

“It exists in the West and Gaza is just an extension of it.”

A fragile hope

Yet even amid the warnings, Ziada said there is reason to hope.

She said: “The tears I saw in the eyes of the hostages’ families, their excitement that their children and family members will finally be coming back from this hell… it puts a smile on my face.”

For now, she admits, the world will celebrate a pause in the bloodshed.

But her message is clear: Hamas is not finished — and the West ignores that reality at its peril.

US President Donald Trump says Israeli captives held in Gaza will be released on Monday.

Hamas and allied Palestinian factions have reiterated that any decision on the future governance of Gaza is “an internal Palestinian matter” as the ceasefire in the territory takes effect.

In a joint statement on Friday, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) joined Hamas in lauding the steadfastness of Palestinians, which they said foiled Israel’s plans for mass forced displacement in Gaza.

“We renew our rejection to any foreign guardianship, and we stress that the nature of the administration of the Gaza Strip and its institutions are an internal Palestinian matter to be determined by the national component of our people directly,” the statement said.

The groups added that they are working on an “urgent comprehensive national meeting” to discuss next steps after the ceasefire.

“This will unify the Palestinian position, formulate a comprehensive national strategy, and rebuild our national institutions on the foundations of partnership, credibility, and transparency,” they said.

It is not clear whether Fatah, the faction that dominates the Palestinian Authority, has agreed to be part of the meeting.

United States President Donald Trump’s 20-point Gaza plan includes the creation of a new international body, dubbed the “Board of Peace”, that would be tasked with overseeing an interim authority of technocrats to govern Gaza.

According to the scheme, Trump himself would chair the board, which would also include former British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The first stage of the ceasefire, to which both Hamas and Israel agreed, is linked to Trump’s plan, but it remains unclear how Gaza will be governed going forward.

Captive releases; aid trucks for Gaza

Al Jazeera obtained a copy of the stipulations of the agreement, which calls on Hamas to hand over the Israeli captives within 72 hours without any public celebrations or media ceremony.

The deal also would ensure that at least 600 aid trucks reach Gaza daily, as well as the rehabilitation of water stations and the establishment of camps to shelter people in the enclave.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians began their journey to their homes in the north of the territory on Friday as the Israeli military started to withdraw from coastal areas.

The Palestinian Civil Defence said it retrieved 63 bodies from the streets of Gaza City after the truce came into effect on Friday. Thousands of Palestinians remain missing amid difficulty in pulling victims from under the rubble and reaching areas under Israeli military control.

Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud described near total destruction in Gaza City after weeks of intense Israeli bombardment.

“On the way to Gaza City, as we approached the main entrance on the coastal road, it was already unrecognisable by the vast destruction and devastation of many of the buildings,” Mahmoud said.

“During our displacement journey, when we left the city, we counted 15 buildings either partially standing or still fully intact, inhabited by some of the displaced families. On our way back, we did not see them.”

Later on Friday, the Gaza Government Media Office stressed the need for a comprehensive reconstruction plan for the territory.

The first phase of the agreement calls for the entry of equipment to remove the rubble – a first step towards reconstruction.

The deal also says that United Nations agencies and other aid groups would distribute the humanitarian assistance, effectively sidelining the controversial Israel and US-backed GHF.

Hundreds of Palestinians were killed over the past months as they tried to reach GHF sites deep inside Israeli lines of control. Rights groups have described the mechanism as a death trap.

But GHF announced on Friday that it will continue to operate despite the ceasefire.

“GHF’s team on the ground continues to provide humanitarian aid and food to all those who need it,” GHF executive director John Acree said in a statement.

“We will not rest so long as there are Gazans in need. It’s our mission, and it continues on.”

GHF whistleblowers have documented horrific abuses committed in and around the private foundation’s sites.

Donald Trump heading to Israel and Egypt on Sunday after Nobel Committee’s decision not to hand him Peace Prize after Gaza deal.

United States President Donald Trump is heading to the Middle East on Sunday as he looks to assert his perceived role as a peacemaker in the region after the Gaza ceasefire deal.

The visit would come days after the Nobel Peace Prize committee overlooked Trump’s public campaigning for the award and handed it to right-wing Venezuelan opposition leader Maria Corina Machado.

The White House has bemoaned the snub, accusing the Norwegian Nobel Committee of putting “place politics over peace”.

But in the Middle East, Trump is likely to be showered with praise from his hosts and credited with securing an end to the war in Gaza and the release of Israeli captives in the territory.

The White House said on Friday that Trump will depart for the Middle East on Sunday night, according to Al Jazeera correspondent Alan Fisher. The US president will first arrive in Israel, where he will make an address on Monday, before continuing on to Egypt, Fisher reported from Washington DC.

Israel and Hamas have already lauded Trump’s role in the negotiations.

But analysts stress that for the deal to turn into long-term peace in Gaza, rather than another brief truce, the US president must pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu against restarting the bombardment after the Israeli captives are released.

“I think that Donald Trump wants to oversee this very closely, and I think he wants to continue to send the message to Netanyahu that this is it. At least, that’s what I’m hoping,” said Mohamad Elmasry, a professor at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies.

“I assume he’s going to go and say very nice things about Benjamin Netanyahu; that’s what he always does publicly. But let’s hope, let’s hope, that he’s going to apply pressure.”

While Trump is taking much of the credit for the deal, experts say other factors pushed the truce over the line, more than two years into the brutal Israeli assault that United Nations investigators have concluded is a genocide.

Yousef Munayyer, head of the Palestine/Israel programme at the Arab Center Washington DC, said after destroying more than 80 percent of the buildings in Gaza while failing to free the captives, Israel was getting “diminishing returns” from its campaign in the territory.

“Israel is facing growing isolation and costs for continuing down this road. And I think there are also Israeli domestic political factors that influenced the timing of this as well,” Munayyer told Al Jazeera.

Similar proposals to the Trump plan have been on the table for the past two years, but Netanyahu has insisted on continuing the war.

However, the latest ceasefire comes at a time when countries across the world, including some of Israel’s Western allies, are condemning its blockade on Gaza and belligerence across the region, including its attack on Qatar last month.

Despite the international outrage, Israel has continued to receive military and diplomatic support from the US.

Not only did the Trump administration fail to denounce Israel’s policy of imposed starvation in Gaza, it also backed the GHF aid scheme to militarise humanitarian assistance, which killed hundreds of aid seekers.

As Trump celebrates his version of peace in the Middle East, rights advocates say there can be no true stability in the region without ending the occupation and ensuring accountability for the genocide in Gaza.

Nancy Okail, head of the Center for International Policy (CIP) think tank, warned that normalising the horrific abuses in Gaza could lead to the collapse of international institutions.

“If there’s no accountability for what happened in Gaza, it’s a licence for others to do similar things, and that weakens and puts everyone in jeopardy,” she told Al Jazeera.

Hebron, occupied West Bank – Among the more than 67,190 Palestinians killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, there has been a particularly heavy toll on journalists and media workers. More than 184 journalists have been killed by Israel in the war, including 10 Al Jazeera staff members, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists.

Palestinian journalists in the occupied West Bank were only able to look on at their colleagues’ sacrifice in Gaza from afar. But they have also faced their own challenges, as Israel continues its near-daily practice of raids throughout the Palestinian territory.

As Palestinians in Gaza expressed relief at the news of the ceasefire deal, journalists in Hebron, in the southern West Bank, were documenting how Palestinians were being restricted from moving around large parts of the city because of the influx of Jewish Israelis as a result of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot.

Among the areas where Palestinians’ movement has been restricted is the Ibrahimi Mosque, also known as the Cave of the Patriarchs, in central Hebron.

As the journalists navigated the Israeli road closures, they sent their own messages to their colleagues in Gaza – who were forced to endure two years of war marked by displacement, hunger, and loss.

Mamoun Wazwaz, photojournalist

“A thousand blessings to all of you – those who work with the international agencies, TV channels, websites, radio stations, and in the field. You gave everything and sacrificed immensely. I pray that your suffering ends after two years of hell, and that you never live through another war. Your message was the most sacred and powerful in history. You shook the world – because you conveyed the truth. No one could have done what you did.

“The psychological and emotional impact of those who died will never fade. [I remember when Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief] Wael Dahdouh stood over his son’s body and said, ‘They took revenge on us through our children,’ – I felt those words cut deep into my heart. I saw the footage on television and broke down crying. Imagine how his colleagues, who live it with him, must have felt.

“We live here in Hebron in constant contact with the Israeli occupation forces – there are frequent incursions and military checkpoints. After the war began, following October 7, 2023, the confrontations and clashes were intense.

“They treated us as part of the war, not as neutral observers, and used every possible means to fight us. Many times, I would say goodbye to my family as if it were the last time.”

“You journalists in Gaza sacrificed your lives for your people and homeland. You risked everything to convey the truth, the suffering, and the crimes against Gaza’s people. Whenever one of you is killed, I feel as it I’ve lost someone myself – as if I were the one wounded or arrested.

“You carried the message until your last breath, and you never stopped. You inspire us to continue the path you and the generations before you began. Thank you for every photo, every shot, every moment you captured for the world to see the many, many faces of war.

“War meant displacement. War meant famine. War meant being targeted by the military. War meant stopping education. Through your work, you made the world see it all.”

Raed al-Sharif, journalist

“My feelings are conflicted today after the ceasefire was announced. We in the West Bank followed everything happening in Gaza, where hundreds of journalists were killed or wounded, some losing limbs. What happened was a real crime, a genocide. Journalists [were especially targeted] because the occupation doesn’t want reports to come out of Gaza.

“Honestly, I feel ashamed as a Palestinian journalist. Despite our sacrifices in the West Bank, they don’t amount to even a drop in the sea of what our colleagues in Gaza experienced. They offered their lives and bodies – the most precious sacrifice of all.

“It’s our duty as Palestinian journalists to carry the voice of our oppressed people and continue the journey. The ones who affected me most are our martyred colleagues – like the al-Ghad cameraman Yazan al-Zuweidi, and Al Jazeera’s Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh. As for Nidal al-Wahidi, he’s been missing since October 7 [2023] – we don’t know if he’s detained, martyred or wounded. That absence hurts deeply – he vanished from existence.

On Thursday morning, President Donald Trump announced that the United States, working with Egypt, Turkiye and Qatar, had finally reached a ceasefire deal for Gaza. For a moment, it seemed as if Gaza’s long nightmare was coming to an end.

But the ceasefire didn’t bring peace; it only shifted the suffering into a quieter, more insidious form, where the real damage from the rubble began to settle into Gaza’s weary soul. Years of relentless shelling had built up fear and heartbreak that no outsider could erase.

During those two brutal years of bombing and near-total destruction, everyone in Gaza was focused on one thing: Staying alive. We were fighting for every minute, trying not to break down, starve, or get killed. Life became an endless loop of terror and waiting for the next strike. No one had the luxury to dream about tomorrow or even to mourn the people we’d lost. If there was any kind of shelter, and that was a big if, the goal was simply to move from one shattered refuge to another, holding on by a thread. That constant awareness that death could come at any moment turned every day into an act of survival.

Then, when the explosions finally eased, a quieter kind of pain crept in: All the grief we had buried to get through the chaos. Almost everyone had someone torn away, and those pushed-aside memories came rushing back with a force that took the breath out of us. As soon as the rockets fell quiet, another fight began inside people’s chests, one full of mourning, flashbacks and relentless mental anguish. On the surface, it looked like the war was over, but it wasn’t. It was far messier than that. Even when the shelling eased, the emotional wounds kept bleeding.

When the noise finally faded, people began to ask the questions they had forced themselves to ignore. They already knew the answers – who was gone, who would not be coming back – but saying the words out loud made it real. The silence that followed was heavier than any explosion they had survived. That silence made the truth impossible to avoid. It revealed the permanence of loss and the scale of what had vanished. There were holes everywhere, in homes, in streets, in hearts, and there was no way to fill them.

People in Gaza breathed a fragile sigh of relief when the news of a ceasefire arrived, but they knew the days ahead could hurt even more than the fighting itself. After 733 days of feeling erased from the map, the tears locked behind their eyes finally began to fall, carrying with them every ounce of buried pain. Each tear was proof of what they had endured. It was a reminder that a ceasefire does not end suffering; it only opens the door to a different kind of torment.
As the guns fell quiet, people in Gaza were left to confront the full scale of the devastation. You could see it in their faces – the shock, the fury, the grief – the weight of years under fire.

Roads that once hummed with life had fallen silent. Homes that had sheltered families were reduced to dust, and children wandered through the ruins, trying to recognise the streets they had grown up on. The whole place felt like a void that seemed to swallow everything, as bottled-up grief burst open and left everyone floundering in powerlessness. During the onslaught, the occupiers had made sure Palestinians could not even stop to mourn. But with the ceasefire came the unbearable realisation of how much had truly been lost, how ordinary life had been erased. Coming face to face with the absence of loved ones left scars that would not fade, and the tears finally came. Those tears ran down exhausted faces and broken hearts, carrying the full weight of everything remembered.

It was not only the mind that suffered. The physical and social world of Palestinians lay in ruins. When the bombing eased, people crawled out of their makeshift tents to find their homes and towns reduced to rubble. Places that had once meant comfort were gone, and streets that had once been full of life were now heaps of debris.

Families dug desperately through the rubble for traces of their old lives, for roads and signs that had vanished, for relatives still trapped beneath the debris. Amid the wreckage, the questions came: How do we rebuild from this? Where can we find any spark of hope? When an entire world has been destroyed, where does one even begin? Israel’s strategy was clear, and its results unmistakable. This was not chaos; it was a deliberate effort to turn Gaza into a wasteland. By striking hospitals, schools and water systems – the foundations of survival – the aim was to shatter what makes life itself possible. Those strikes sowed a despair that seeps into everything, fraying the bonds of community, eroding trust and forcing families to wonder whether they can endure a system built to erase them.

The destruction went deeper than bricks and bodies. The constant shadow of death, the bombs that could fall anywhere, and the psychological toll made fear feel ordinary, hope seem foolish, and society begin to unravel. Children stopped learning, money disappeared, health collapsed, and the fragile glue holding communities together came undone. Palestinians were not only struggling to survive each day; they were also fighting the slow decay of their future, a damage etched into minds and spirits that will last for generations.

When the fighting subsided, new forms of pain emerged. Surrounded by ruins and with no clear path forward, people in Gaza faced an impossible choice: Leave their homeland and risk never returning, or stay in a place without roads, schools, doctors or roofs. Either choice ensured the same outcome – the continuation of suffering by making Gaza unlivable. Endless negotiations and bureaucratic deadlocks only deepened the despair, allowing the wounds to fester even as the world spoke of “peace”.

The ceasefire may have stopped the shooting, but it ignited new battles: Restoring power and water, reopening schools, rebuilding healthcare, and trying to reclaim a sense of dignity. Yet the larger question remains: Will the world settle for symbolic aid and empty speeches, or finally commit to helping Palestinians rebuild their lives? Wars carve deep wounds, and healing them takes more than talk. It demands sustained, tangible support.

After two years under siege, Gaza is crying out for more than quiet guns. It needs courage, vision and real action to restore dignity and a sense of future. The ceasefire is not a finish line. It marks the start of a harder struggle against heartbreak, memory and pain that refuses to fade. If the world does not act decisively, Palestinian life itself could collapse. Rebuilding communities, routines and a measure of normalcy will be slow and difficult, but it has to happen if Gaza is to keep going. Outwardly, the war may have paused, but here it has only changed shape. What comes next will demand everything we have left: Endurance, stubborn hope, the will to stay standing.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.

Thousands of displaced Palestinians have begun returning to their abandoned and mostly destroyed homes, as the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas takes hold, with Israeli forces withdrawing from parts of Gaza.

Families started moving from western residential areas on Friday back towards Gaza City’s main districts, areas from which they were previously forced to flee.

Several Israeli military brigades and divisions have pulled out from central Gaza regions as well.

At the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, families have begun travelling northward, though many remain waiting to enter areas in the Netzarim Corridor, where Israeli forces were stationed. They are holding there until the final Israeli tank departs the area.

Concerning developments include heightened activity of Israeli drones, fighter jets, and warships since early morning. Multiple attacks were reported in the morning at locations where people were gathering to return home.

A huge procession of displaced Palestinians moved northward through dust-filled roads towards Gaza City, the territory’s largest urban centre, which had experienced intense Israeli military operations just days earlier.

“Thank God my house is still standing,” said Ismail Zayda, 40, in the Sheikh Radwan area in Gaza City. “But the place is destroyed, my neighbours’ houses are destroyed, entire districts have gone.”

The Israeli military announced the ceasefire agreement took effect at noon local time (09:00 GMT). Israel’s government ratified the ceasefire with Hamas early Friday, setting in motion a partial troop withdrawal and complete suspension of hostilities in Gaza within 24 hours.

Israeli captives are scheduled for release within 72 hours afterwards, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.

The first phase of United States President Trump’s plan to end the two-year Gaza conflict requires Israeli forces to withdraw from major urban centres, though they will maintain control of approximately half the enclave’s territory.

Once the agreement takes effect, aid trucks carrying food and medical supplies will enter Gaza to assist civilians, hundreds of thousands of whom have been living in tents after their homes were destroyed and entire cities reduced to rubble.

“Any misperceptions, missed deadlines or misinterpretations can scupper this whole [ceasefire].”

Lecturer in International Security, Robert Geist Pinfold says things will “get complicated” now that the Gaza ceasefire has been agreed between Hamas and Israel.

Israeli tanks and heavy combat vehicles were filmed in Gaza on Friday, reportedly withdrawing from parts of the enclave as phase one of the ceasefire plan is set to take effect.

Sami Al-Arian, a professor at Istanbul Zaim University, talks about the Gaza ceasefire deal and the key conditions required for it to hold.

Israel’s government has approved “phase one” of the agreement, which will see captives exchanged and Israel withdraw from parts of Gaza. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked President Trump and US officials for their role in ceasefire negotiations to end the war on Gaza.

Israel’s government has approved the plan ‘for the release of all captives’, fighting in Gaza to stop within 24 hours.

Israel and Hamas may have agreed to the first phase of a United States-backed ceasefire deal, but contentious differences between the two sides still remain, particularly when it comes to the fate of the Palestinian group’s weapons.

Israel has long insisted that Hamas surrender all of its weapons if its two-year war on Gaza is to end, as well as demanding that the group relinquish governance of the Palestinian enclave and dissolve itself as an organisation.

For its part, Hamas has publicly rejected calls to give up its weapons, but experts say that the group has expressed openness in private to hand over some of its arsenal.

“When it comes to disarmament, this is where you have seen the biggest shift in Hamas’s position,” said Hugh Lovatt, an expert on Israel-Palestine with the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR).

“[Hamas officials] have said in private to interlocutors that the group may be open to a decommissioning process of Hamas’s offensive weapons,” he told Al Jazeera.

Shaky ceasefire

Negotiations over Hamas’s arsenal could torpedo the ceasefire and prompt Israel to resume its genocidal war on the destitute and beleaguered Palestinian population in Gaza, analysts said.

An armed group has the right to bear arms and resist an occupying power in line with international humanitarian law – the main framework referenced to protect civilians in times of war.

Yet, Israel and its Western allies have historically demanded that Palestinian factions give up armed resistance as a precondition to launching a peace process ostensibly aimed at ending Israel’s occupation over Palestinian territories.

This was the framework underpinning the Oslo Peace Accords in the 1990s, signed by then Palestinian and Israeli leaders.

Israel is likely to try and make similar demands this time around, but Hamas is unlikely to completely disarm, according to Azmi Keshawi, a Palestinian from Gaza and a researcher with the International Crisis Group (ICG).

He said that he could only envision Hamas surrendering some “offensive weapons” such as short-range and long-range missles.

However, he believes Hamas will never give up its small arms and light weapons, nor hand over a map of its sophisticated tunnel network, which it spent decades building to resist Israel.

“[Hamas] will only give up [light] weapons when there is no need for these weapons. This means they will only hand them over to a Palestinian leadership that assumes control of a state after Israel ends its occupation,” Keshawi told Al Jazeera.

Power vacuum?

Hamas was the largest of several armed groups in Gaza before Israel began its war on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel.

Some of these groups include Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades.

These groups have long been committed to waging armed resistance against Israel, and it is unclear to what degree they have been degraded by Israel’s relentless carpet bombing over the last two years.

During Israel’s genocide – recognised as such by scholars, the United Nations and human rights groups –  Israel has also propped up notorious gangs to steal and profiteer off the little aid it has allowed into the Gaza Strip.

Many Palestinians in Gaza believe Hamas should preserve some military capabilities to stop these gangs from exploiting a possible power vacuum, Taghreed Khodary, an analyst on Israel-Palestine who is from Gaza, told Al Jazeera.

“Israel created gangs and gave them weapons and guns to kill their own people [in Gaza]. Now Israel wants to expel Hamas, but Hamas is needed to maintain internal security,” she said.

“Hamas is very good at providing security,” she stressed.

Lovatt, from ECFR, added that Hamas may be willing to cooperate with an interim task force deployed to provide security and oversee a partial decommissioning of its weapons.

However, he said that Hamas would only agree to coordinating with such a force if its mandate clearly stipulates that it will not counter “terrorism” in any way.

“I’m sure there is very little appetite in Western capitals to play that ‘counterterrorism’ role, and it certainly wouldn’t be acceptable to Hamas. It would expose the international task force as explicitly serving Israel’s goals,” Lovatt told Al Jazeera.

‘Hamas as an idea’

Throughout Israel’s genocide, Israel has claimed that its war aim is to ostensibly dismantle Hamas. But Keshawi, the ICG researcher, said Hamas will never be fully defeated.

He predicts the group will absorb thousands of destitute and vengeful young men into its ranks in the coming years. To many people, he said, Hamas is not merely an organisation, but an “idea” that symbolises resistance.

“The [group] has set an example for the whole Arab world. They fought a war that nobody thought they could fight, even though the cost was very high,” Keshawi told Al Jazeera.

Still, Lovatt said the group remains pragmatic and is willing to make concessions to extend the ceasefire for as long as possible.

He noted that the sustainability of the ceasefire ultimately hinges on US President Donald Trump and other Western leaders reining in Israel and its maximalist demands.

“There is a very high risk that Israel is able to win the argument in Western capitals … that Hamas must be fully demilitarised [before the occupation ends],” he said.

“If that happens, then it will be a new pretext for Western states to let Israel off the hook as happened under the Oslo Accords,” Lovatt told Al Jazeera.