The Nassar family has done what they can to recreate a semblance of home.
A battered sofa, a few surviving chairs, and a small table form their makeshift living room.
Sheets hang over the gaping hole in the wall, concealing the wreckage outside.
But beneath that mound of concrete and twisted metal, Khalid Nassar knows, lies the body of his son Mahmoud – buried and unreachable for four months since an Israeli airstrike claimed his life.
For thousands of displaced Palestinians returning home under a fragile cease-fire, this is the grim reality.
After 16 months of relentless indiscriminate Israeli bombardment and ground offensives killing over 46,000 people, mostly women and children, their struggle is no longer just about survival – it’s about reclaiming a sense of normalcy amid the ruins.
Shattered lives
With no way to rebuild, families adapt.
Apartment blocks, stripped to their frames, are cloaked in colorful bed linens, makeshift walls against the open air.
Amid the wreckage, they clear just enough space to survive – pushing aside shattered concrete and twisted rebar to carve out what remains of home.
Rooms resemble fragmented movie sets – furniture huddled in the last standing corners, surrounded by ruin.
The Nassars fled Jabalia early last year, moving from one shelter to the next.
In October, Mahmoud returned to retrieve clothes from their other building. An airstrike struck.
His sister was killed in a separate attack. Like him, she remains buried beneath the rubble.
When Israeli forces withdrew in January, the family returned to find the top floor of their three-story home obliterated.
One of Nassar’s sons moved his wife and children to the second floor.
Nassar, 61, and his wife, Khadra Abu Libda, 59, took what remained of the ground floor, along with the five children of another son, who is imprisoned in Israel.
Miraculously, their living room furniture had survived. The rest of the house was in shambles.
Daily fight for survival
Basic needs are a daily battle. Water means walking 3 kilometers (1.8 miles) and standing in line for hours – when the well is working.
Food consists of humanitarian aid, bread, and wild greens called “khobeiza.”
But nothing torments Nassar more than the ruins next door, where his son remains buried. “Every minute, I think about how to get him out,” he says. He digs daily, armed with only a shovel, unable to move the massive slabs of concrete. “This morning, I searched again,” he said. “All I found were some papers and clothes.”
No homes left to return to
While some have returned, many have nothing left to come back to.
Hanan Okal’s family home in Jabaliya was flattened. They remain in a school-turned-shelter where they first took refuge months ago.
The Odeh family returned to find their building’s ground floor gutted.
With no way in or out, they rigged a ladder to reach the second floor, where Yousef and his brother Mohammed now live with their families.
Their parents, Ahmed and Mariam, remain outside, in a tent of wood and plastic sheets. “The tent and our building offer the same protection from the cold,” they say.
With much of the neighborhood razed, nothing shields them from the February wind.
When gusts ripped away their makeshift wall coverings, they scavenged rubble for new sheets and blankets.
Youssef Issa returned alone to Jabalia to prepare the family home for his parents and siblings, who are still sheltering in central Gaza.
His home spared the worst, bore scars of war but remained standing.
It had been used by Israeli troops, he suspects, which may have spared it from bombardment. He swept out spent bullet casings and debris with the help of his cousin and friends.
Looters had taken blankets, food, and clothes, but one thing remained untouched – a flat-screen TV.
Without electricity, it was worthless to steal.
Still, Issa managed to carve out a living space. The family’s plush purple sofa survived.
He covered a hole in the wall with thick red fabric, arranged cushions just right, and prepared for the day his family can finally come home.
For now, home is the only what they can salvage from the wreckage.
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