As the ceasefire in Gaza is holding to some degree, displaced Palestinians have begun to return to their shattered homes. The UN says 81% of all structures in the Strip were damaged during the war between Israel and Hamas.
00:01Getting ready to go back to Gaza City, Mahmoud Ayyub knows there's not much there.
00:07The family was displaced several times during the war.
00:10Now he's leaving their temporary quarters in central Gaza to check on their home.
00:16He knows what he's heading into.
00:23After they announced another ceasefire, we returned to Gaza again and found our house further damaged.
00:29We keep tidying up and cleaning, but there's no life in Gaza at all. No water. There's absolutely no life there.
00:38The coastal road leads through devastation.
00:42Whole neighborhoods of Gaza City are barely recognizable.
00:48The United Nations estimates that some 61 million tons of rubble in Gaza need to be cleared and that this could take up to 30 years.
01:00Do you see this? There's no road for us even to reach our home.
01:08Do you see how the streets are blocked and destroyed?
01:12There are no bulldozers to remove these piles of rubble.
01:16It's not only dispiriting. It's also dangerous. He has to be extremely careful. There could be unexploded shells under the rubble.
01:28Ayyub's flat is in Sheikh Adwan, a neighborhood in the north of Gaza City.
01:34A few blocks further north and east, the Israeli military is still in charge, which means not everyone can go home, as this displaced young Palestinian explains.
01:45We cannot go to the camp because it's in the yellow zone. If we go there, we'll die. They shell us and shoot at us. We can't reach our homes. We simply cannot get to them. They made this truce for nothing.
01:58The so-called yellow line, the boundary, has not been clearly demarcated and leaves Israel in control of more than half of the Gaza Strip. Anyone approaching the area could be shot.
02:12Ayyub finally reaches his flat. The walls are still standing, but the area around the family home is unlivable. He's not sure when he will be able to return with his family.
02:26What makes things hard for me at home is that there's no water. It's a long trip to bring water back, and we need to carry it up to the fifth floor on the stairs from far away.
02:37Before the war, Ayyub worked as a porter in a shop, but he has no way to earn money right now. But that is not his greatest concern.
02:48The war could restart at any moment, and there's no future for me here in the Gaza Strip because there's no life at all.
02:55Hopefully the truce continues without being breached so things can get better and this war stops.
03:00The truce is only the first step. Rebuilding a life in this neighbourhood will need a whole lot more.
03:10The truce is only the first step, but this is what we have ever been able to have for, and this is what we need for.
03:13The stifling will need a whole lot of trouble for any other area and this is even more.
03:22This is how we have a real world with a lot of waves in the Gaza Strip.
03:23This is what we have been fighting for.
03:24The church is certainly the most part of thezia and the Southern Wall Street, in the Gaza Strip.
03:28To the south and the south and the south, we have a very average vintage standard of this type of food.
03:31The first bank is not only that it is not going to be seen before.
03:33The next day was ever the last two years in a moment.
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