US President Joe Biden has spoken about the Gaza ceasefire deal hours after it took effect.
‘Today the guns in Gaza have gone silent’, says President Biden
TikTok restoring services in US after Trump pledge
TikTok is resuming services to its 170 million users in US after President-elect Donald Trump said he would issue an executive order to give the app a reprieve when he takes office on Monday.
On Saturday evening, the Chinese-owned app stopped working for American users, after a law banning it on national security grounds came into effect.
Trump, who had previously backed a ban of the platform, promised on Sunday to delay implementation of the law and allow more time for a deal to be made. TikTok then said that it was in the process of “restoring service”.
Soon after, the app started working again and a popup message to its millions of users thanked Trump by name. In a statement, the company thanked the incoming president for “providing the necessary clarity and assurance” and said it would work with Trump “on a long-term solution that keeps TikTok in the United States”.
TikTok CEO Shou Chew is expected to attend Trump’s inauguration Monday.
Posting on Truth Social, a social media platform he owns, Trump said on Sunday: “I’m asking companies not to let TikTok stay dark! I will issue an executive order on Monday to extend the period of time before the law’s prohibitions take effect, so that we can make a deal to protect our national security.”
TikTok’s parent company, Bytedance, previously ignored a law requiring it to sell its US operations to avoid a ban. The law was upheld by Supreme Court on Friday and went into effect on Sunday.
It is unclear what legal authority Trump will have to delay the implementation of a law that is already in effect. But it expected that his government will not enforce the ban if he issues an executive order.
It’s an about-face from his previous position. Trump had backed a TikTok ban, but has more recently professed a “warm spot” for the app, touting the billions of views he says his videos attracted on the platform during last year’s presidential campaign.
For its part, President Joe Biden’s administration had already said that it would not enforce the law in its last hours in office and instead allow the process to play out under the incoming Trump administration.
But TikTok had pulled its services anyway on Saturday evening, before the swift restoration of access on Sunday.
The short-form video platform is wildly popular among its many millions of US users. It has also proved a valuable tool for American political campaigns to reach younger voters.
Under the law passed last April, the US version of the app had to be removed from app stores and web-hosting services if its Chinese owner ByteDance did not sell its US operations.
TikTok had argued before the Supreme Court that the law violated free speech protections for its users in the country.
The law was passed with support from both Republicans and Democrats in Congress and was upheld unanimously by Supreme Court justices earlier this week.
The issue exposes a rift on a key national security issues between the president-elect and members of his own party. His pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, had vocally supported the ban.
“TikTok extended the Chinese Communist Party’s power and influence into our own nation, right under our noses,” he said last April. But he seemed to defer to the president-elect when a journalist asked if he supported Trump’s efforts to restore the ban.
“If I’m confirmed as secretary of State, I’ll work for the president,” he told Punchbowl media last week.
After Trump intervened on Sunday morning, Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Tom Cotton, a Republican senator from Arkansas, broke with Trump by saying that any company that helps TikTok stay online would be breaking the law.
“Any company that hosts, distributes, services, or otherwise facilitates communist-controlled TikTok could face hundreds of billions of dollars of ruinous liability under the law, not just from DOJ, but also under securities law, shareholder lawsuits, and state AGs,” he wrote on social media.
An executive order that goes against the law could be fought in court.
Several states have also sued the platform, opening up the possibility to TikTok being banned by local jurisdictions, even if it is available nationally.
Although the platform went live again on Sunday for existing users, the question of whether third-parties – hosting platforms or app stores like Google or Apple – could support TikTok in the US remains murky, says University of Richmond law professor Carl Tobias. The app had been removed from those stores in anticipation of the ban.
“It is murky,” he told the BBC.
In a post on Truth media, Trump promised to shield companies from liability, opening the door to TikTok being available on Apple and Google again.
“The order will also confirm that there will be no liability for any company that helped keep TikTok from going dark before my order,” the president-elect said on Truth Social Sunday.
But during the Supreme Court hearings, Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar was adamant that an executive order cannot change the law retroactively.
“Whatever the new president does, doesn’t change that reality for these companies,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor said during the hearings.
“That’s right,” Prelogar said.
Professor Tobias said that the law does include a provision that would allow the president to postpone the ban for up to 90 days, if he can show that the company is making substantial progress on alleviating national security issues. But, he said, it’s not clear whether those conditions have been met.
“The best thing Trump could do is work with Congress, and not potentially be in violation of the law or have any questions left hanging,” he said.
“I don’t know that we’re going to know a whole lot more until we see that executive order.”
Israel-Hamas Truce Leaves Big Questions Unresolved for Now
Israel and Hamas reached an agreement on an initial six-week truce in part by putting off their most intractable disputes to a nebulous second phase — which neither side is sure they will reach.
Under the agreement, 16 days into the initial cease-fire, Israeli and Hamas officials are expected to begin negotiating next steps: an end to the war, the release of the remaining living hostages from Gaza and the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territory.
Israeli leaders have long insisted that they will not end the war until Hamas is destroyed. That appeared far from reality on Sunday as Hamas militants, some waving rifles, fanned out in parts of Gaza in pickup trucks, in a show of authority to Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Israel and Hamas have both preserved some of their bargaining chips. At the end of the 42-day truce, Hamas will still have around two-thirds of the 98 remaining hostages, including dozens who are believed to be dead. And Israel will still occupy parts of Gaza, and hold major prisoners, including Marwan Barghouti, a militant leader and iconic Palestinian political figure.
But as part of the talks, the Israeli government will then probably have to decide whether it is willing to choose one of its war aims, bringing home the hostages, over another, destroying Hamas. And choosing the hostages might threaten Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s grip on power in Israel.
In the meantime, both sides have agreed to postpone a decisive agreement as to the war’s end and the future of Gaza, and hope the 42-day cease-fire will play to their advantage, said Shlomo Brom, a retired Israeli brigadier general. Hamas, in particular, “hopes that the new dynamic will prevent Israel from returning to fighting,” he said.
The decision to accept a temporary cease-fire opened deep fissures within Mr. Netanyahu’s governing coalition, which is stacked with hard-liners. Itamar Ben-Gvir, the far-right national security minister, resigned in protest from the cabinet and withdrew his Jewish Power party from the coalition on Sunday.
The Religious Zionism party, led by Bezalel Smotrich, threatened to bolt the coalition, too, if Mr. Netanyahu failed to renew the fighting after the end of the 42-day truce. If Mr. Smotrich’s party also left, Mr. Netanyahu’s government would hold fewer than half of the seats in the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament, which could cause the government to fall and force new elections.
On Saturday night, Mr. Netanyahu stressed that the cease-fire was temporary for now. He argued that Israel retained the right to return to the war if “the second stage negotiations are ineffectual,” adding that President-elect Donald J. Trump would support Israel’s decision.
“We retain the right to return to the war, if necessary, with the backing of the United States,” Mr. Netanyahu said in a televised address.
The truce’s fragility was underscored on Sunday morning when Hamas did not immediately hand over a list of hostages to be released to Israel, prompting a nearly three-hour delay in the cease-fire. Analysts say the deal will probably see numerous similar tests over the next few weeks as both sides flex their muscles.
The families of Israeli hostages still held in Gaza have called on the Israeli government to bring home the remaining captives by fulfilling all the phases of the deal. Noa Argamani, a freed hostage whose boyfriend, Avinatan Or, remains in captivity, said that it broke her heart that he was not going to be freed in this round.
“The progress in the past few days is a very important step, but the deal must go through in full, completely, in all of its stages,” Ms. Argamani said in a speech in Miami on Thursday.
The Last Migrant Caravans Before Trump’s Inauguration
Caravans have formed every year since, though over time, they have grown both more frequent and smaller, in an effort to attract less attention.
The nationality of the people in the caravans has also shifted. In 2018, most people came from Central America. More recently, in a reflection of changing migration patterns, Venezuelans have made up the largest single group. People from other South American countries can be found, too. One woman in a recent caravan had carried her Bible from Peru.
Man Utd suffer 3-1 loss to Brighton as Onana error compounds misery | Football News
Andre Onana’s howler seals United’s home loss as struggling Spurs endure another loss at Everton in football’s Premier League.
Manchester United’s season has lurched further into turmoil after a 3-1 home loss to Brighton in the Premier League.
United endured a miserable defeat following goals from Yankuba Minteh, Kaoru Mitoma and Georginio Rutter at Old Trafford on Sunday that consigned United to a 10th defeat in the league.
Bruno Fernandes scored for United from the penalty spot, but the hosts were not helped by a howler from goalkeeper Andre Onana, who spilled a routine gather from a low cross into the box, allowing Rutter to tap home the loose ball.
It was the seventh defeat in 15 games overall under new head coach Ruben Amorim and highlighted the massive job the Portuguese manager has on his hands to revive the record 20-time English champions.
Brighton climbed to ninth place with 34 points, four points off the top four. United are 13th on 26, also from 22 games.
Brighton have won in six of their last seven league games with United and on their last three visits to Old Trafford.
The teams were led out by bagpipes in memory of club great Denis Law, who passed away this week, with a wreath laid at the centre circle by former manager Alex Ferguson.
Brighton led inside five minutes as Mitoma beat the offside trap on the left from Carlos Baleba’s long ball and his pass across goal provided a simple finish for the unmarked Minteh.
United won a penalty midway through the first half when Brighton attempted to play the ball out of defence, but goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen’s pass was poor and the ball fell to Joshua Zirkzee in the box.
Baleba put his arm on the shoulder of the striker, who went to ground. Referee Peter Bankes pointed to the spot, with Fernandes having no problem slotting home to level the score.
Brighton thought they were in front again seven minutes into the second period when United failed to clear a low free kick into the box and Pedro finished. But a VAR check ruled that Jan Paul van Hecke had kicked the foot of Diogo Dalot in the melee.
However, the visitors did get a second on the hour when Mitoma stretched at the back post ahead of United defender Noussair Mazraoui to turn in Minteh’s inviting cross.
Brighton then netted a third thanks to Onana’s horrendous error to make the game safe and leave United to dwell on their 10th league defeat.
Elsewhere, Tottenham Hotspur’s woeful campaign also sunk to new depths with a 3-2 loss at relegation-fighting Everton. But Nottingham Forest’s unlikely title challenge goes from strength to strength after a 3-2 win against last-placed Southampton.
Who are the three Israeli hostages being released?
Family handoutsA young woman described as “at her happiest when she dances” is among three Israeli women released after 471 days held hostage by Hamas.
Romi Gonen, 24, was captured as she tried to escape the Nova music festival when it was targeted by the militant group as part of the 7 October 2023 attack.
She has been freed alongside Doron Steinbrecher, 31, a veterinary nurse, and Emily Damari, 28, who holds dual British-Israeli nationality.
It was confirmed on Sunday afternoon that the three hostages had been handed over to the Red Cross by Hamas in Gaza.
Their release forms part of the first phase of the ceasefire and hostage release deal between Israel and Hamas, which began on Sunday. A total of 33 hostages are to be freed over the next six weeks.
Romi Gonen
Reuters / HandoutRomi had travelled from her home in Kfar Veradim, northern Israel, to the Nova festival, which took place in the Negev Desert in the south.
More than 360 people were killed at the festival when Hamas fighters crossed over the border, 2km (1.3 miles) to the west. The desert landscape offered partygoers limited cover and exit routes were blocked by gunmen.
When sirens sounded as the attack unfolded, Romi called her family. Her mother, Meirav, recalled hearing shots and shouting in Arabic in the final call with her daughter.
Romi was ambushed by Hamas militants as she tried to flee.
In June, her mother addressed the UN Human Rights council to appeal for international help to release the hostages.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said she had gone to the festival “to do what she loved, to dance” – something she had studied for 12 years, starring in solo performances and becoming an “amazing choreographer”.
A video posted by the families’ forum last November described her as “the girl with the biggest smile, the brightest light, the greatest friend”.
The forum also said that Romi’s bedroom at her home “remains exactly as it was when she left”, awaiting her return.
Doron Steinbrecher
Bring Them Home Now / HandoutDoron, a 31-year-old veterinary nurse, was abducted from her apartment in Kibbutz Kfar Aza – near Gaza’s north-western border – when Hamas attacked.
The community, one of many Israeli villages along the border, was heavily targeted by armed militants during the 7 October attacks.
Israeli officials said Hamas burned homes and killed civilians, including whole families, as well as taking hostages.
When the assault began, Doron contacted her family and friends via WhatsApp to say she was hiding under the bed as militants advanced, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum said.
In her last voice message, she was heard screaming “they’ve caught me” as shouting and gunfire sounded in the background.
Doron’s family received no information about her whereabouts for nearly four months.
In May last year, her sister, Yamit Ashkenazi, wrote an emotional letter through the missing families forum, calling her “my sunshine”.
“I wish you could feel the energy we send to you,” it read.
And in an earlier post, Doron was described as “the glue that connects all her friends, sensitive and funny, always smiling and the first to offer help”.
She studied theatre and film in school, and developed a love for animals that led to her becoming a veterinary nurse.
Speaking to the BBC in November 2023, Doron’s sister Yamit spoke of a new tattoo. It read: “As the sun we will rise again”, but had some of the sun’s rays missing.
“They will be added when she is home,” she added.
Emily Damari
PA MediaEmily, a 28-year-old British-Israeli national, was also taken hostage from Kibbutz Kfar Aza on 7 October 2023.
She was shot in the hand and taken into Gaza from her home during the attack, and also saw her dog shot and killed.
Her mother, Mandy Damari, was also in the kibbutz in her separate home on 7 October. Mrs Damari hid in the safe room and was saved by a bullet hitting the door handle, making it impossible for attackers to get in.
As the assault unfolded, Emily sent her mother a text message containing a single heart emoji – that was the last contact they had.
In December, Mrs Damari told the BBC how concerned she was about the conditions her daughter was facing. Sunday was the first time they received information about Emily since March.
As news of her release came, a source close to her family said that it had been a “torturous 471 days but a particularly torturous 24 hours”.
“All Emily’s mum Mandy wants to do is hug Emily. But she won’t believe it until she sees it,” the source said.
Mrs Damari was born and raised in the UK, and met her husband on a holiday in Israel aged 20.
Emily, the youngest of four children, has strong connections with the UK – she is a Tottenham Hotspur fan and would often visit to see relatives, attend concerts, go shopping and visit the pub here.
Mrs Damari previously told the BBC that Emily is “the core of our family and the core is missing”.
“I love her to the moon and back, she is a special person,” she added.
First 3 Israeli Hostages to Be Freed Under Gaza Cease-Fire Are Named
Hamas on Sunday released the names of three hostages to be freed in the first phase of the cease-fire agreement with Israel. The three, all women, were expected to be released later on Sunday.
About 100 hostages, living and dead, are thought still to be held captive in Gaza, most of them taken in the deadly Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Thirty-three of them will be released during an initial six-week phase of the cease-fire, including female soldiers and civilians, children, men over 50 and sick and wounded people, according to the agreement.
The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, an Israeli group representing family members of the captives, identified the first three hostages to be released on Sunday. Here is what we know about them:
Romi Gonen
Ms. Gonen, was 23 when she was captured as she was trying to leave the Nova music festival in southern Israel when Hamas attacked. She was speaking at the time to her mother, Meirav Gonen, who she said had been shot and was bleeding.
Last February, Meirav Gonen released a recording of her last phone call with her daughter. She told Israeli news media that Romi was a strong and happy person who often went to raves.
In the early weeks of the war, her mother expressed concern that Israeli military operations in Gaza could endanger the hostages.
Romi Gonen’s older sister, Yarden, told The New York Times in February that she regularly went to a plaza in Tel Aviv where families of hostages have held vigils.
“None of us is doing anything remotely related to our previous lives,” she said.
Emily Damari
Ms. Damari, 27 at the time she was captured, is the only hostage with British citizenship still being held. She was taken from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Azza in southern Israel and was seen by a neighbor in her own car, driven by a militant, heading toward Gaza.
Ms. Damari was raised in Israel but traveled to Britain often, according to her mother, British-born Mandy Damari, who was in Israel in December to speak with officials and the news media and to plead for a hostage and cease-fire deal. She said her daughter had been shot and that she feared for her life, telling the BBC that she had welcomed the threats from President-elect Donald J. Trump that there would be “all hell to pay” if no deal was reached by his inauguration.
Last January, a hostage who had been released from Gaza, Dafna Elyakim, told Israeli news media that she and her younger sister had been taken into Hamas’s underground tunnels, where they met other female hostages including Ms. Damari.
On the eve of the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attacks, Mandy Damari spoke at an event in Hyde Park in London, where she described her daughter as a soccer fan who enjoyed a drink and had “the classic British sense of humor, with a dash of Israeli chutzpah thrown in for good measure.”
Doron Steinbrecher
Ms. Steinbrecher, who was 30 when she was captured from her home in Kibbutz Kfar Azza, is a veterinary nurse with Romanian and Israeli citizenship. According to Israeli news media, she was in touch with her family on the kibbutz when the militants attacked, telling her parents that they had smashed her windows and shot into her room.
“They’ve arrived, they have me,” she said in a subsequent voice message sent to friends.
Last January, Hamas released a video clip of Ms. Steinbrecher and two other captives, Daniella Gilboa and Karina Ariev, in which they pleaded for their release.
Last March, on her 31st birthday, the Jewish News Syndicate published an interview with her mother, Simona Steinbrecher, who said that she had looked pale and thin in the video. She said she was concerned that Ms. Steinbrecher was not getting the daily medication she needed, though she did not specify what that was.
“She’s a strong woman, but it’s terrible being there,” Simona Steinbrecher said.
As Truce Takes Hold, Gazans and Israelis Express Elation Tinged With Doubt
As a truce took hold on Sunday in Gaza, potentially ending the longest and deadliest war in a century of Israeli-Palestinian conflict, two men used the same metaphor to describe how they felt.
“The weight on my chest has lifted,” said Ziad Obeid, a Gazan civil servant displaced several times during the war. “We have survived.”
“The rock lying on my heart has been removed,” said Dov Weissglas, a former Israeli politician. “We want to see the hostages home, period.”
But — both men also had a “but” — Mr. Obeid has not seen his damaged house in northern Gaza for more than a year. How bad, he wondered, is the damage? And who will rebuild a decimated Gaza?
Mr. Weissglas worried about the condition of the hostages set to be freed gradually over the next few weeks from dank quarters in the territory. And he grimaced about exchanging them for hundreds of Palestinian detainees, many of whom are serving life sentences for attacks on Israelis. “There is relief,” he said, “wrapped in caution, fears and concern.”
It was an apt summary of the mood on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide on Sunday, as Israelis and Palestinians expressed feelings of elation tinged with doubt.
For Palestinians, the truce is theoretically expected to provide at least six weeks without strikes on Gaza. That offers a window for Gazans to take tentative first steps toward reconstruction; to find relatives still buried in the rubble; and to come to terms with the killing of more than 45,000 people, both civilians and combatants, whose bodies have already been counted by the Gazan health authorities.
For Israelis, the deal allows for the gradual release of at least 33 of the hostages captured during Hamas’s raid on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 — an attack that killed up to 1,200 people and provoked Israel’s devastating 15-month response. For the hostages released alive, that means freedom after 470 days of captivity. For Israelis at large, many of them wracked by a form of survivors’ guilt, it offers qualified catharsis.
But the details of the deal between Israel and Hamas mean that both sides still face considerable uncertainty about how the next six weeks will play out, let alone about whether the tentative arrangement will later become permanent. Even the first phase started hours behind schedule on Sunday morning, amid disputes about which hostages would be released in the afternoon. In that time, according to the Gazan authorities, Israeli strikes killed and wounded yet more people.
Palestinians remain unclear about the fates of several thousand Gazans detained incommunicado during the war and who may not be released during the upcoming exchanges. Reema Diab, a housewife in central Gaza, still has no away of locating her husband, a horse trainer, who she said was taken for interrogation in Israel in December 2023 and never heard from since.
“I’m relieved the bloodshed is coming to an end, but my heart aches,” Ms. Diab said. “His absence is unimaginable.”
A few dozen miles away, Mr. Weissglas feared for the fates of some 65 hostages who may not be released from Gaza if the deal collapses after six weeks. He worried that many of the initial 33 hostages set to be released over the next 42 days may be emotionally or physically scarred, or even dead. And he lamented the cost of their freedom, which will be obtained in exchange for Palestinian detainees, including those convicted of major terrorist attacks as well as teenagers who have never been charged.
Palestinians see the soon-to-be released prisoners as freedom fighters. For Israelis, it will be a psychological blow to see “this stream of murderers being released,” Mr. Weissglas said.
Videos of Hamas fighters re-emerging in triumph from hiding was also a gut-punch for Israelis, who had hoped the war would completely destroy the group’s military abilities. For many Gazans, it was a sight to be celebrated, but for others, it was a reminder of lingering uncertainty about Gaza’s future governance.
Mr. Obeid works for the Palestinian Authority, which lost power to Hamas in Gaza 18 years ago but which still employs some civil servants there, including Mr. Obeid. He said he had been working with the authority’s leaders in the West Bank to plan potential cleanup and reconstruction operations in Gaza in the coming days. It is unclear, he said, whether that will be possible with Hamas still in charge over the next six weeks.
But that is tomorrow’s challenge, Mr. Obeid said.
For now, he said, “I can breathe oxygen again.”
Bilal Shbair contributed reporting from Deir al Balah, Gaza Strip, and Aaron Boxerman from Jerusalem.
The ceasefire will not bring our lives back | Israel-Palestine conflict
A lot of noise – missiles and explosions, the sound of drones, shouting and wailing, screams of “martyr, martyr”. The breaking of glass, slamming doors, collapsing buildings, fires blazing, thunder, lightning, wind, gasps of death, darkness, and ashes. All of them are still in my head.
I left Gaza almost a year ago, but these images and sounds are still haunting me. I left everything behind – my home, my friends, my extended family – but could not shed the echoes of the war.
Here, in Cairo, I keep reliving the trauma of what I had seen, heard and felt in the first four months of the war in Gaza.
When I hear the sound of an aeroplane in the sky, my heart races in fear, thinking it’s a warplane. When I hear the sound of fireworks, I panic, imagining them to be bomb explosions.
I used to think exile would bring safety and peace, but it turned out to be an extension of the war.
The death and destruction happening in Gaza still dominate our lives. The sorrow, pain, and struggle for survival that we thought we had left behind still follow us.
We do not live in a tent flooded by rain and we are not starving; the sound of bombs is not real – it is only the echoes of memories in our minds. But we still live in misery.
My father, the breadwinner of our family, could not find a job for months. When he did, it paid a meagre salary. We face mounting debt and cannot afford basic necessities.
Meanwhile, we have stayed fully immersed in the horror of Gaza. The bombardment, the mass killing, the suffering in torn-up tents – it streams to us on messaging apps hour by hour.
All the Palestinian friends I have here seem to be in the same situation – living in pain and despair, besieged by the war.
“I wish I had died with them instead of living,” my friend Duaa told me recently. Her family sent her to Cairo soon after the start of the genocide to complete her studies in peace. “I had a feeling I wouldn’t see them again when I said goodbye,” she said, sobbing.
A few days after she arrived in Egypt, thinking life had granted her a better opportunity to study abroad, she tried to contact her family to check on them but received no response. Anxiety consumed her until she received the devastating news of their martyrdom.
The pain was unbearable and she failed her studies. To this day, she struggles to pay the rent for her apartment and told me her landlord would soon evict her because she hadn’t paid. She is an orphan, alone in exile, and may soon become homeless, too.
Another friend, Rawan, had been studying in Egypt for a few years before the war started, dreaming of a bright future. On October 10, 2023, a huge explosion destroyed her house, killing her entire family. Only her mother, who miraculously survived despite severe injuries, and her married sister, who lived in another house, are left.
Rawan told me she missed her father’s encouraging messages, the support of her brothers Mohammed and Mahmoud, and the innocent laughter of her sister Ruba. She never completed her education. She has become a shadow of herself.
Nada, another friend, is in Cairo with her sister. The girls had to leave their parents and brother behind in Gaza, as their names were not on the list of people allowed to go through the Rafah crossing.
In Cairo, Nada felt lost, alienated, and afraid. She tried to apply again for her parents and brother to travel, but the occupation stormed Rafah and closed the crossing. At that time, she told me that she felt like all the doors of life closed in her face.
Nada and her sister live alone, without the support of relatives, and struggle. The stress and sadness have taken a toll. Nada has lost a lot of weight and now says she looks like a skeleton.
She has told me harassment and fear of kidnapping have made them reluctant to leave the apartment they are staying in.
“We yearn for our past lives in every detail,” she says.
We do, but we also know that our past lives have been lost. Even if the war ends, nothing will ever go back to the way it was. Nothing will compensate us for that bitter loss.
The ceasefire taking effect today is supposed to put a stop to the fighting, but it is unclear if it will end the war. More than 120 people have been killed since Wednesday when it was announced. And we know more will die because conditions will not improve. Gaza is no longer fit to live in.
Even if there is lasting peace, the Israeli government will set its own conditions to continue the blockade and harassment of the population. Reconstruction – if it takes place – will continue for many years. This is why we, as a family, have made a decision to start building a new life in exile despite the challenges we face.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Cautious celebrations in Gaza as ceasefire begins
The future is “uncertain and unclear” in Gaza after a long-awaited ceasefire between Israel and Hamas began, BBC Middle East Correspondent Rushdi Abualouf has said.
“People don’t know if it’s a real ceasefire on the ground, or a fragile ceasefire” he added.
You can follow live updates on this story on the BBC.
