Before the announcement of a ceasefire in January 2025, I was among the 400,000 people who stayed in northern Gaza.

The experience was overwhelming and unbearably hard. Israel did everything possible to force us southward. We endured severe bombardment, chessboard-like displacement and famine for more than a year.

But my family and I refused to leave.

We knew the occupation could not force us to abandon the places where we were born, raised and lived most of our lives. And we knew that if we left northern Gaza, the occupation would take over our land.

The brief ceasefire from January to March 2025, when people were finally allowed to return to their homes, felt like the most glorious and important moment in Palestinian history.

Palestinians returned to the very homes in the north that they had been forced to leave.

That return, however, now feels like a cruel trick. ….more