The air on the beach in Gaza city last Friday afternoon was full of lucky squeals of small children who ran into the water and out of the water, the atmosphere far from the destruction and rash of the city, while hundreds are looking for a current creation from the war.
The beach, about 10 minutes on foot from the city, is peppered with colorful umbrellas where adults hide from the strong sun in the afternoon and have a watchful eye on small children on the nearby Mediterranean. Many swim in their clothes and not in bathing suits and races to their parents in soaked T-shirts and wipe salted water from their faces.
For a while, the thoughts of the war and the stress, survival, injections, sand castles and a feeling of relatives are replaced. But even this little moment of joy can be spoiled with memories of lost relatives and the impending fear that things could still go wrong at any time.
“When I came here, I cried,” Umm Fadi Awad told CBC News Freelance video video Mohamed El Safe when they were sitting under one roof with several other mothers while their children played nearby.
“I would come in recent years and the environment was so nice. Now a lot of things are missing, even our luck is not the way it was in the beginning.”
The Palestinians in Gaza explain how the beach, once a place for funny and beautiful memories, is now bitter because they find exhaustion in the middle of the Israel Hamas War.
Awad says that she and her family were sold four or five times in the course of the war and moved between Rafah and Khan Younis before they finally drove to Gaza city in the first phase of the ceasefire in January.
Then Dr. Hanan Balkhy, regional manager of the Eastern Mediterranean for the World Health Organization (WHO), told An emergency press conference The “psychological trauma that faces people in Gaza is unspeakable.”
She continued that the collective trauma from the war is “profound and mostly”.
As the Palestinians are looking for a respieve they can find, many become a day on the beach.
“Everything has changed”
Awad, 40, sits with friends at a beaten table with hot water for tea and coffee while a child eats a bowl.
She says the beach is a place to rest and find peace in the chaos of her life.
“This is the only room we can breathe.”
Nearby, Heba al-Masry admits that she was afraid to get to the beach at first, but she finally gave up her children’s requests, and when she arrived, she said she went to play.
“I couldn’t hold my children,” she said. “They wanted to relieve the stress and pressure.”
The 36-year-old Al-Masry remembers when her family came to the beach before the war when the shops she knew well were still open.
“Everything has changed,” she said, looking around the people on the beach.
“You feel like a stranger in any place you go.”
“All of our memories were here”
At another table, Taghreed al-Khairy holds the tears back and remembers the special trips that she would take the same place in the darkness of the night with her 30-year-old son.
When he came home from work, he told her that she should come to the beach with him, where they would stay until the dawn broke through the clouds.
“We would sit at this point,” she said. “All of our memories were here, but now there are no nice memories.”
When she looks at her phone, she cries with photos of her son, of whom she says that he was tartled together with her husband, daughter, her son -in -law and her children. She wishes more beach visits with her son, more hugs from her grandchildren and even longs for normalcy to argue with her husband about money.
These trips to the bank may be a chance for the Gazaners to forget their problems briefly, but they are also filled with painful memories of beloved people who are lost in a war that continues to continue.
Hope for ceasefire when Trump wanted to visit East
On Monday, Hamas released the American Israel, Edan Alexander, who was held hostage for 19 months, in a gesture of good will to the Trump administration, which was able to lay the basis for a new ceasefire with Israel.
The 21-year-old Alexander was one of around 250 people who were taken hostage on October 7, 2023 after the attack on South Israel was killed by around 1,200 people. According to the Gaza Health Ministry, Israel’s answering soil and air invasion killed more than 52,000 people.
The publication of Alexander has been the first since Israel has been an eight -week ceasefire with the Hamas shattered and concluded violent strikes against Gaza. Many of the 250 hostages were freed in earlier armistice shops, and Israel says that 58 hostages remain in captivity, with about 23 still alive.
Hamas freed Edan Alexander, who was the last living American hostage before visiting US President Donald Trump in the Middle East and increasing hopes for a new ceasefire company. The journey begins in Saudi Arabia with stops in Qatar and the Trump of the VAE skipped Israel this time.
Days before the end of the ceasefire, Israel blocked all auxiliary imports to enter the Palestinian enclave, to deepen a humanitarian crisis and to trigger warnings of the risk of a famine if the blockage is not canceled. The government says that the steps should put the Hamas under pressure to accept a ceasefire on the conditions of Israel.
At a temporary food distribution station in the heart of the city of Gaza, Abu Abu Abu Halima is waiting to draw a pot of lentil soup. The distributions have become chaotic with food in an extremely low supply in Gaza, with people sliding and pushing. Many leave empty hands after hours of waiting.
The 39-year-old says she is optimistic that US President Donald Trump can help end the war in Gaza Strip, especially in view of his upcoming trip to the Middle East this week.
“We have hope in both God and Trump to solve it – we have great hope in him,” said Halima.
Although Trump should not visit Israel this time, he said in a social media post on Monday by Alexander’s publication: “Hopefully this will be the first of these last steps to end this brutal conflict.”
Halima, who clutched her soup bowl, said she hoped that an armistice would mean stability and security for the people of Gaza.
“We want security for our children to eat to offer them an apprenticeship.”
Give your children the chance to breathe
Back on the beach, Al-Masry fidgets in her black plastic chair, worried that her children are too far from the shore in the water and that things could get bad very quickly.
“I keep an eye on her,” she said, admitting that she is still afraid that there could be more strikes.
She says that many of her fears and fears from the war manifest themselves and try to always protect their children, but she remembers that they have to breathe – even if it is only for a moment.
When the sun starts on this almost normal Friday afternoon on the beach, it is a signal that it will soon be time to return to reality. Al-Masry and her children will go back to the family home in Gaza City, which was partially destroyed during the war. But she says it is better than living in a tent.
When her two daughters and her son appear from her swimming, al-Masry beams at the sight of them. Her youngest crawls into her lap and his smile quickly turns into tears as she wipes over his face.
