Just as Palestinians in Gaza were buoyed by a sense of hope on Wednesday after news of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, deadly Israeli air strikes rained down on people, turning celebration into suffering.
Families wept as they saw the bodies of their loved ones, wrapped in white shrouds, being transported in Khan Younis outside Nasser Hospital on Friday, their names written in blue ink in Arabic, on each one of them.
Juma Abdel-Al said that two of his nephews – Muhammad Asaad Jarghoun (28 years old) and Muhammad Mahmoud Jarghoun (27 years old) – were martyred in a tent in the center of Khan Yunis at around 2 a.m. on Friday.
Abdel-Al told CBC videographer Mohammed Al-Saifi on Friday: “Every day we bid farewell to the martyrs. We are accustomed to bidding farewell to our loved ones.”
“Oh God, bring us together with them [the afterlife]“Life has become an unbearable hell,” he said.
Other mourners gathered to pray for the dead while women wept and clung to each other.
At least 117 people have been killed since Wednesday
On Friday, Israel’s security cabinet recommended approval of the Gaza ceasefire agreement and the return of the hostages, ahead of a full cabinet meeting that would give final ratification to the agreement that is set to officially take effect on Sunday.
While final details are still official, Israeli warplanes continued their intense strikes across the Gaza Strip in the days following Wednesday’s announcement.
Since then, at least 117 Palestinians, including 32 women and 30 children, have been killed, and 266 others injured, according to the Palestinian Civil Defense in Gaza.
Palestinians gathered on Friday at Nasser Hospital near Khan Yunis in southern Gaza to pray over the bodies of their loved ones killed in Israeli air strikes just days before the ceasefire took effect.
Abdel-Al, who lost his two children in air strikes during the 15-month-old war, said he did not hope for an end to the killings in Gaza.
He said, “The Palestinian people were not able to enjoy even a single moment during the past 75 years while death and destruction occurred in these countries.”
There was no comment from the Israeli army on the recent raids.
A journalist was killed in a specific humanitarian area
Earlier this week, just hours after Palestinians took to the streets to celebrate news of the agreement reached on Wednesday, Ahmed Al-Shayah, the brother of Ismail Al-Shayah — a journalist in Gaza — was killed in an Israeli airstrike that hit a charity soup kitchen in Gaza. Al-Mawasi area, west of Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip. The area is designated as A Humanitarian safe zone.
“He distributed food to orphans and worked with them [the] Charity,” Sheikh told CBC News Thursday.
“This is a loss for Palestine and a loss for the homeland.”
In a video A video showing a young Palestinian man sitting on the body of his sister, who was killed in an Israeli air strike on a house in central Gaza City early Thursday, has been widely circulated online.
“Hala, get up, the war is over, we can go to the south,” he says, shaking the girl’s body. “Hala, can we leave Gaza and travel outside the country? Get up!”
Hope soon turns into pain
Saeed Awad, a paramedic in Gaza, said that Israeli bombing has particularly increased since Wednesday on central and northern Gaza.
“All of this, of course, spoils people’s happiness,” Awad told CBC News Thursday. “It affects the happiness that was there [Wednesday]”.
Awad said that a raid took place in the Mufti’s land in central Gaza on Thursday, but the Palestinian Civil Defense and ambulances were unable to reach the area.
“The house was on fire and no one could get to it.”
Israel’s acceptance of the ceasefire agreement with Hamas will not be official until it is approved by the country’s security cabinet and government. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu postponed the vote, accusing Hamas of making last-minute demands and reneging on the agreements.
Tamer Abu Shaaban’s voice cracked as he stood over the tiny body of his young niece wrapped in a white shroud on the tile floor of the Gaza City morgue on Thursday. He added that she was hit in the back by a missile fragment while she was playing in a schoolyard where her family was taking shelter.
“Is this the truce they’re talking about? What did this girl, this child, do to deserve this? What did she do to deserve this? Is she fighting you, Israel?” he asked.
A ceasefire agreement was reached on Wednesday after mediation by Qatar, Egypt and the United States. The agreement stipulates an initial ceasefire for six weeks with a gradual withdrawal of Israeli forces, in addition to the release of Palestinian hostages and prisoners.
If successful, the ceasefire will stop the fighting between Hamas and Israeli forces that have destroyed most of Gaza and killed more than 46,800 people, most of them women and children, according to the Ministry of Health there. He did not mention the number of militants killed.
Israel says it killed more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
The war began when militants led by Hamas stormed Israel in a surprise attack on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, including many Canadian citizens, and kidnapping about 250 people.
About 100 hostages remain inside Gaza, and the Israeli army believes that about a third or half of these have been killed.