By Nour ElAssy
There is a moment, right before waking up, when the world is silent, a moment where sleep still holds you, where reality has not yet sunk its claws into you. But then, in an instant, the silence is gone. The ground heaves beneath you. The sky erupts in fire. Walls shake. Screams cut through the night. And suddenly, you are awake, not to the soft breath of dawn, not to the quiet murmur of life returning, but to devastation – to a war that was supposed to have paused, yet never really did.
That’s what happened on 18 March when Israel began bombing Gaza again. It confirmed that this so-called ceasefire, which started on 19 January, was never real. It was violated time and time again. The bombings never truly stopped. Gaza’s borders remained closed. The Israeli occupation is once again blocking all humanitarian aid.
Just when Ramadan began, at the start of March, Israel tightened its grip, sealing the crossings and leaving 2.1 million people without food, medicine, or water. We never had time to breathe, let alone to recover from the horrors we have endured. Displaced families who lived in their collapsed houses or tents never found a permanent home. Our wounded never received proper treatment. Our dead were never adequately mourned. Mothers never saw the bodies of their sons who are still buried under the rubble.
And now, the cycle of bloodshed has begun again. When the first bombs fell, we were asleep. I woke up to the sound of my room door shaking loudly, along with the entire house. My mother and I ran towards each other to ask what was happening. We didn’t know, and we were praying it wasn’t a resumption of the war. Deep down inside, we knew, but we didn’t want to accept it.
At least 730 people have been killed in the past week, and the number is still rising. More than 400 – including 130 children – were killed on the first night alone, in the middle of a ceasefire that was never real to begin with. We cannot even bury them. Many are still under the rubble, trapped beneath the very buildings they once called home. There is no heavy equipment to lift the concrete, no hands strong enough to pull them from the ruins.
We were supposed to be safe. We were supposed to be allowed, even briefly, to believe in peace. But instead, we woke up to bombs. We woke up to the loss.
Before the war resumed
The last time I wrote for The New Humanitarian, the ceasefire had just been announced, but it had not yet come into effect. At that time, I was feeling joy and the faintest hope that – after 15 months of unimaginable suffering and devastation – the war might end. But it was mixed with the sting of doubt and the knowledge that the ceasefire could break at any moment.
After the ceasefire began, we were told we could go home – that the north, the ruins of what was once our city, was open to us again. My family and I left Deir al-Balah, where we had been displaced for over a year, to go back to our home in Gaza City.
The road back was traumatising. We travelled along Salah al-Din Street by car, in the middle of the Gaza Strip. I couldn’t recognise anything, neither the streets nor the buildings. It was like a movie about the end of the world. Some buildings were standing. Some were collapsed. Some were burned. Entire streets were wiped out. The rubble in some places was entirely cleared away, leaving just an open space, like a desert, without a trace that anyone had lived there.
We passed my university where I used to spend my days. There were only a couple of walls still standing. Everything around it was crushed to the ground. Crossing back into northern Gaza, we had to pass through a checkpoint where we were searched by soldiers. It was humiliating being searched entering my own land.
Hundreds of thousands of other people walked for miles upon miles, stepping over debris, over shattered glass, over the remnants of lives destroyed. And when we arrived, what did we find in the north? Nothing. No water, no electricity, no shelter.
By some miracle, our home was still standing and in relatively good shape. Some of the doors and all of the windows were broken. We immediately began cleaning and repairing it to make it comfortable enough to live in again.
But the homes most people once knew are nothing more than broken stone and dust. There is no running water beneath this wreckage, no way to drink, no way to bathe, no way to live. We search for hours, dragging empty containers through streets lined with ghosts of the past. We ration every drop, every sip, because tomorrow is uncertain, because tomorrow may never come.
At night, we sit in darkness, the flickering glow of a candle the only reminder that we are still alive. We endure. We try to rebuild. And just when we start to believe we might make it, they come for us again. The bombs fall, the world shakes, and the war we thought had ended reminds us that it never left.
The nightmare continues
After the first night of the bombing, the families of the people who have been killed in the renewed offensive stand outside the buildings and tents that have been bombed, staring at the piles of debris, knowing that somewhere in there, beneath the weight of a world that has failed them, are the people they loved. But they cannot do anything. No one can do anything.
One of the places that has been bombed is a displacement camp in a cemetery near my home. That is Gaza in 2025: People living in a cemetery with no place left to go as the bombs continue to fall and the world looks on.
What is the world waiting for? How many times must we wake up to this nightmare? How many more ceasefires must be shattered before the world stops pretending not to see?
Now, we are terrified of being displaced yet again. The idea of leaving the warmth of our home again is a nightmare. And all of this is happening during Ramadan, the month we used to eagerly wait for. The streets would glow with lanterns, the air would fill with the scent of freshly baked bread and warm soup. Families would gather, breaking their fasts together, their laughter echoing between homes. The mosques would be full, the call to prayer ringing through the city like a melody of faith and unity.
This year, Ramadan came to a land of ruin. The mosques are no longer standing, their domes crushed beneath rubble, their minarets no longer calling us to prayer. The markets are empty, their shelves stripped bare. Aid trucks are stopped at the border, their lifeline to us severed. The prices of what little remains have soared beyond reach, making even a simple meal unattainable. That wasn’t enough, so they resumed this genocide as violently as ever.
Worst of all, we are afraid, afraid to gather, afraid to pray, afraid to celebrate even a moment of this sacred month, because here, in Gaza, even gathering together can be a death sentence. The spirit of Ramadan has been stolen from us, just like everything else.
What is the world waiting for? How many times must we wake up to this nightmare? How many more ceasefires must be shattered before the world stops pretending not to see? They have taken our homes, our families, our futures. They have stolen our right to live, to dream, to even hope for a tomorrow. And yet, the world is silent.
Maybe, years from now, history will tell our story. Maybe people will read about the night Gaza was promised peace but given death. Maybe they will say they did not know. But we will know the truth: They knew. They all knew. And they chose to look away.
Edited by Eric Reidy.
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The New Humanitarian puts quality, independent journalism at the service of the millions of people affected by humanitarian crises around the world. Find out more at www.thenewhumanitarian.org.
