Gazans Return to Ruined Homes as Truce Holds
TEHRAN (Tasnim) - Many Palestinians living close to the Israeli border returned to piles of rubble where their homes once stood, as a fragile five-day ceasefire extension between Hamas and Israel entered its second day.
Calm held on Friday morning as the two sides in the Gaza conflict pondered Egyptian-mediated efforts to secure a lasting peace.
Om Ahmed, who returned to the town of Khuzaa to inspect the home she had bought last year, found it completely flattened by Israeli strikes, Al Jazeera reported.
"I was shocked and was screaming in the street. I still have to pay the mortgage. I am a widow. my husband was killed in the previous war and now my son is in hospital," she told Al Jazeera.
Her relative Nuseiba Kadeh and her four children, who fled during the conflict to a safer place, also returned after the ceasefire was extended.
"We will stay here for the next five days. I haven't seen many members of my family since the war started. I want to know what happened to them," she said.
The Israeli offensive on Gaza, which started on July 8, has so far claimed the lives of more than 1,960 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in Gaza. More than 10,000 others have been reported injured.