Gaza is awaiting a ceasefire, fearing last-minute catastrophes

Civilians in Gaza waited impatiently on Friday for a break after 15 relentless months of war as Israel’s cabinet met in Jerusalem to finalize a temporary ceasefire deal with Hamas.

As they waited, Israel hit the Strip with airstrikes, killing at least 113 people since the deal was first agreed in principle on Wednesday night, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Civil Defense Agency.

The deal, finalized on Friday afternoon, is due to go into effect on Sunday, leaving Gazans just over 24 hours away from having to wait for a break.

“Time is running slower than ever,” said Dr. Abdallah Shabir, 27, an emergency physician at Baptist Hospital in Gaza City. “At any moment you can lose your life,” he said. “Sitting at home walking down the street – no warning.”

Dr. Shabbir was on shift at the hospital on Wednesday evening when news of the ceasefire agreement broke. There was a brief moment of joy, he said, but less than an hour separated the announcement from the start of a wave of airstrikes that sent a stream of dead and wounded toward the Baptist.

Every member of the staff was called. “It was as bad as we’ve ever seen,” Dr. Shabbir said in a phone call from the hospital. “Severe injuries, severe burns. Many dead, of course.”

Among the dead brought in Thursday was a colleague, Hala Abu Ahmed, a 27-year-old internal medicine specialist whom two Baptist colleagues described as a dedicated and promising young doctor and a kind person.

She had worked tirelessly and under extreme pressure for 15 months, since the start of the war, said Dr Ahmad Eliva, head of the emergency department, and was killed after a ceasefire was agreed.

Among the millions displaced in the Strip, many were waiting Friday for the moment when they could return home for the first time since the war began. Many will find a bombed wasteland in place of their home.

“My house is completely destroyed, the building is gone,” said Sabreen Doshan, 45, who owned a street stall and lived in an apartment block in Gaza City.

Doshan has lost 17 members of her extended family since the war began, she said. She was ready to leave Deir al-Balah in central Gaza, where she lives in a tent, to the ruins of her home.

“Even if I have to put my tent on rubble, it will be okay because I will be home,” she said. “Now nowhere can satisfy me but home.”

The destruction in the Gaza Strip is enormous. According to a recent analysis by the UN Satellite Center, 69% of all structures and 68% of roads were destroyed or damaged as of December. About 46,700 people were killed, according to the Hamas-run health ministry.

Israel set out to destroy Hamas in Gaza in October 2023 after the group attacked southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages.

For Gazans, the joy of the long-awaited ceasefire was tempered by the scale of the death and destruction. “By God, it’s a mixed feeling,” said Wael Muhammad, a freelance journalist living in a refugee camp in central Gaza.

“From one moment to another, from joy to pain,” he said. “I am happy that the bloodshed will stop, but we live in misery.

On Friday afternoon, the cease-fire agreement made its way through Israel’s political system for final approval. That paves the way for an initial group of three hostages to be released as early as Sunday, in exchange for about 95 Palestinian prisoners.

But the exchange that will play out over the next six weeks is fraught with the possibility of a collapse.

“The biggest challenge is whether the ceasefire will be successfully implemented,” said Juliet Tuma, director of communications for the UN refugee agency UNRWA.

“If so, the challenge ahead remains absolutely enormous. The majority of shelters are overcrowded. Many simply live outdoors or in makeshift structures. They lack basic needs such as warm clothes. I wouldn’t call these living conditions, they are not conditions suitable for human beings.”

In Gaza on Friday, some were focused on Sunday and whether they would make it to that break without the deal falling apart.

“We are afraid of any change, any movement,” said Khalil Natiel, 30, whose house in Jabalia in the northernmost part of the Gaza Strip was destroyed at the start of the war.

“The news is going,” said Natiel from a shelter in central Gaza. “We’re watching and waiting.”