A hundred days of Gaza ceasefire? For us, the war continues in all but name

Israel and Hamas agreed to halt their fighting last October – but the ‘peace’ you read about in newspaper headlines bears no relation to what people like me are experiencing on the ground, says Nour Abo Aisha in Gaza City

After 100 days of the alleged ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, I don’t feel hope, only gloom.

I remember Donald Trump’s declaration, early on 10 October 2025, that the truce would begin. I was sitting in the Mocha Cafe in southern Gaza when I heard people yelling, “This is a real truce, run to Gaza,” as they ran along the sea road. I was writing a report about Gazans’ stance on the ceasefire, but far from being joyful, I was crying and questioning whether the announcement of the truce was truly worth all the bloodshed.

Since then, the struggle for survival has only got worse. Anyone here would tell you that we survive the reality that has been thrust upon us rather than truly living. We exist between the anguish of our past, the fear of the unknown, and the constant threat of war. I have never felt as though there is a ceasefire. Each day is soundtracked by the background noise of the yellow line bombing the eastern Gaza region.

As soon as the truce was announced, my father decided to return to western Gaza. He informed my family that instead of living in a tent in the southern Gaza Strip, we would return to live next to the debris of our home, which Israel had bombed two weeks earlier. At first, I refused to go, but I had no choice but to agree with my father’s decision. He was concerned about how we would relocate to a place where there was nothing: no water, no sewage systems, no internet, but we went anyway.

We made our way back to our devastated Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood – “like I was living in a grave”, as my cousin put it. My eyes hurt from how grey everything was.

A woman fixes her makeshift tent in Zawaida, central Gaza Strip (AP)

We battled to survive in our destroyed, wall-less house, the only advantage of which was its burned roof, before eventually moving to live next door to it in our tent. The walls often tear. We try to fasten them to the wood with pins, but the memories of my old bedroom’s warmth never leave me. Living between nylon walls that my father repairs every day, I freeze with the cold. Yet I am terrified: what if our shelter flew away and I found myself unprotected in the street? The sound of the wind combines with that of the drones and my neighbours screaming as they pray to Allah for the rain to stop so that they can sleep.

I can’t even find a cure for my chronic cold. Every night I wonder: why does illness never leave me? Why can’t I find somewhere warm to live with my sadness?

I escape reality every morning by going to a workspace. The rain soaks me as I walk through sewage-filled streets. Once, I was stranded in the rain for two hours. There is no transportation in Gaza and no public shelter, so I sobbed and hid my laptop in a nylon bag while standing inside one of the vendors’ tents. He told me not to worry and that the rain would stop. As it poured down from all sides, I hugged my laptop in fear of losing my last connection to normality.

I wish there were a real ceasefire. I wish that I could live in peace, away from the drones, the bombing, the news of martyrs and tent collapses. But I'm in Gaza, still living in famine – a result of Israel's control over what food can enter Gaza, as well as our paper currencies having worn out and there being no sources of income.

Gaza wishes to calm down, to put an end to the unknown, and move on to the second phase of the ceasefire. Yet here we are: soaked and bleeding from a war that continues in all but name.

Nour Abo Aisha is a freelance journalist in Gaza