Eight months after Israel invaded Gaza’s southernmost city of Rafah, forcibly displacing over 1 million Palestinians, the ceasefire has enabled some of the city’s former residents to return home. But unlike in Gaza’s northern sector, where the relatively swift and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces made it possible for tens of thousands of displaced residents to go back to their devastated neighborhoods, the army’s continued presence in Rafah along the border with Egypt and its ongoing attacks on returning civilians means that only a small number have attempted to make their way back.

According to the Health Ministry in Gaza, Israeli forces have killed 80 Palestinians in the Strip since Jan. 19, the date the ceasefire began. Sixty of those deaths occurred on that first day, when Israel delayed the implementation of the deal for several hours, and it is unclear how many were killed before or after it technically went into force. Out of the 80 casualties, half have been in Rafah alone.

Among them was 24-year-old Hassan Issa Abu Sharkh, from Rafah’s Al-Shaboura neighborhood. His cousin, Amani, said that Abu Sharkh had advised the family to wait a few days before going back “because the [Israeli] army always betrays us,” but decided to return on the third day of the ceasefire in order to check on their home and prepare it for the family’s return. “The house was very badly damaged,” Amani told +972. “Only the columns and the roof were left intact, but all the walls were destroyed.”

It was during that visit, Amani recounted, that Abu Sharkh was shot dead by an Israeli sniper in circumstances that remain unclear to the family. He was rushed to hospital in critical condition and succumbed to his wounds the next morning. “We are all in shock,” she said. “He was his parents’ eldest son, an ambitious young man. He worked very hard as a private English teacher to help his family.”

After Abu Sharkh’s killing, the Rafah Municipality warned other residents against returning to the area for their own safety. “Unfortunately, we don’t know which places are dangerous because of the army’s [continued] presence,” Amani said.

Rafah’s mayor, Dr. Ahmed Al-Sufi, told +972 that Israeli forces stationed near the border were still firing at Palestinians attempting to return in recent days. “There are still Israeli military vehicles in some areas, and they are shooting at civilians, so we have urged people not to return until the situation stabilizes,” he said. He also warned that the “complete lack of infrastructure” further endangers those trying to come back.

Highlighting the immense challenges ahead in rebuilding Gaza, Al-Sufi reported that Rafah’s western area had suffered “more than 90 percent destruction,” while the southern border areas had been “entirely wiped out.”

“There are approximately 150,000 homeless people from Rafah,” he said. “We need to construct 50,000 housing units to accommodate them, which will take at least five years,” he added, emphasizing the urgent need for temporary solutions such as mobile housing units.

“We have started working independently and with limited capabilities to open the streets closed by rubble,” Al-Sufi continued. “We need fuel and spare parts in order to continue our work, as well as heavy equipment in order to remove heavy roofs [of buildings that collapsed]. We need to repair infrastructure, especially water, so that citizens can return to their homes. All the electricity and communications poles are completely destroyed. We need help from other countries in order to bring life back to the city of Rafah.”

Dr. Muhammad Al-Mughair, a senior official in Gaza’s Civil Defense, explained that even areas that were fully evacuated by Israeli forces remain extremely perilous. “After the withdrawal of the Israeli army, our crews spotted many suspicious objects in the streets and [unexploded ordnance] in large quantities,” he told +972 Magazine. As a result, his team were forced to pause their efforts to recover the bodies of those killed in Rafah following the Israeli invasion of the city last May. “Most of what we recovered were charred skeletons,” he added.

+972 approached the Israeli army for their response regarding Abu Sharkh’s killing, but a spokesperson said they would be unable to comment unless we provided the exact coordinates of the incident, which we were unable to obtain due to the danger that the army poses in the area.

‘We saw the end of the world’

Despite the dangers, some residents of Rafah have still made the journey home since the ceasefire went into effect, hoping to take the first step toward rebuilding their lives. The extent of the destruction they discovered in the city, which was home to nearly 300,000 Palestinians before the war, has left many of them stunned.

Among them was Manal Salim, a 49-year-old mother of eight, who left her home in Rafah with her family shortly after the Israeli invasion began. As soon as the ceasefire came into effect, her 20-year-old son, Issam, went back to check on their home. “I called him to tell him to return quickly because the area was still dangerous, but all I could hear was him weeping,” she recounted. “He told me, ‘The whole house was destroyed,’ and asked me to stay on the phone with him because he felt pain in his heart and [feared he] was going to pass out.”

After speaking with her son, Salim decided to go with her other children to see for herself what remained of their home. “I couldn’t believe what I was seeing,” she said. “I couldn’t believe that this was the area where I lived. The entire house was destroyed. Nothing was left of it.”

Like other returning Rafah residents and Gazan officials who spoke to +972, Salim reported witnessing Israeli army fire from soldiers deployed along the border with Egypt — known as the Philadelphi Corridor — that stretches southwest of the city. “The Israeli army is still in Rafah,” she said. “We heard the sound of shelling when we went to check on our house.”

Salim, whose husband died of COVID-19 during the height of the pandemic, mourned the loss of both her family’s cherished memories and her children’s future. “As a mother, I am tired of crying so much,” she said. “I worked for more than 25 years to build that house. I opened a beauty salon where my daughters worked and a bridal gown rental shop where my sons worked. I believed I had secured their future, giving them a path to build their lives. Now I’ll [need to] go back to work under impossible conditions.

“When my 11-year-old daughter, Sarah, saw the house, she couldn’t stop crying,” Salim continued. “When we were displaced, we left our belongings in one room; when we returned, we found a deep hole with the belongings in it. My children tried salvaging anything they could and were happy that they found a few items.”

Tel Al-Sultan, the neighborhood in which Salim’s home once stood, is among the worst hit in Rafah. “The neighbors were all in shock,” she said. “The [Israeli] occupation left no meaning to life in this area. There are no schools, no universities, and no infrastructure. What did we do to them? We are civilians with a life and a future and they destroyed it. We saw the end of the world in Tel Al-Sultan.”

Amid the terrible shock, Salim and her family put up a tent next to the rubble of their home, but the rain soon forced them to return to their displacement camp at Al-Aqsa University near Khan Younis. Still, Salim affirmed that their intention is to return to live in their old neighborhood.

‘The army is still targeting civilians’

Maha Issa, 37, was also displaced from Tel Al-Sultan and returned to check on her family’s house on the second day of the ceasefire. “I thought the suffering I experienced for more than seven months in tents would end when I returned, but when I went back I was shocked by what I saw,” she told +972.

Issa, a mother of two who was living with her family in a displacement camp in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi since the start of Israel’s Rafah invasion, said that seeing the condition of her neighborhood left her “in a state of shock and depression.”

“My house, my husband’s family’s house, and our neighbors’ house were all completely destroyed,” she lamented. “My children’s future was destroyed because of an occupation that hates us as Palestinians. I feel lost and don’t know what I’ll do. I don’t know if a future exists for us or if we have the strength to keep going.”

Upon returning to the area where they lived, Issa recalled, “my children, who are under 7 years old, were frightened when they saw such devastation. They were pulling me by my clothes, wanting to return to the tent.”

Issa also reported witnessing ongoing attacks by Israeli forces, despite the ceasefire. “The army is still firing shells at Tel Al-Sultan and targeting civilians who are checking on their homes there. I don’t know what they want from us.”

Unlike Salim, Issa told +972 she does not intend to return to Rafah long-term after what she witnessed there. “I will stay in the tent,” she said. “Tel Al-Sultan looks like it was hit by a powerful earthquake or a nuclear bomb. There’s no water, nothing. The streets are full of rubble.

“The area where I was born, raised, and gave birth to my children has become foreign to me — I do not know it,” she continued. “I lived the worst days of my life in the tent and I was patient in order to return to my home, but this dream has become a nightmare.”

‘I will live on the rubble of my home’

Aya Al-Mudallal, 33, told +972 that she and her family “never got used to living in a tent” after they were displaced from Rafah following Israel’s invasion last May. They attempted to return on the very first day of the ceasefire, but what they encountered along the way disoriented them. “I didn’t recognize the roads because of the extent of the destruction,” she recounted.

When they reached Rafah, Al-Mudallal said, she and her family heard intermittent gunfire. “I didn’t feel like we were in a ceasefire. The army is on the Philadelphi Corridor firing on all areas of Rafah. We want the army to tell us clearly where the safe areas are.”

The danger to their lives forced the family to make the painful decision to move back to the displacement camp in Al-Mawasi, but Al-Mudallal emphasized that she wishes to return as soon as possible. “My house was destroyed and the land was bulldozed by the army, but I want to go back and stay in Rafah,” she said. “Why were the people of the north able to reach their homes, while we, the people of the south, can’t reach ours at all?”

Salem Asraf, 50, also returned to his home in Tel Al-Sultan after the ceasefire took effect, only to find it — and the rest of the neighborhood — reduced to rubble. “I endured months of displacement, clinging to the hope that I would return home, rest in my own bedroom, and reclaim my stable routine,” he said. “But I came back and found nothing but destruction. I hugged my neighbor and together we cried bitterly over what we saw.”

The devastation was so extreme that Asraf said he almost wishes the war hadn’t ended so he wouldn’t have returned to see it. “Years of hard work vanished in an instant,” he said. “I haven’t found any trace of my home; I’ve searched but I can’t find it. Is this hatred? Or revenge?

“Houses are not just stones; they are memories, a future, safety and stability — and we’ve lost all of this,” he continued. “I’m trying to support my five children and grandchildren so they can bear this disaster, but I haven’t been able to console myself. I’m waiting for there to be water, and then I will live on the rubble of my house until it is rebuilt. We want the international courts to prosecute Israel for this destruction.”