Elated, teary Palestinians flood streets of Gaza after ceasefire deal
News of deal comes after months of start-and-stop negotiations
In the moments after hearing mediators had finally reached a ceasefire deal to stop the fighting between Israel and Hamas, Amjad Shawa and his family watched from their apartment balcony in Deir al-Balah, in southern Gaza, as dozens of exhilarated neighbours flooded the streets.
Strangers sat on each others' shoulders with Palestinian flags and shot fireworks into the night sky. Shawa, who fled his own home in Gaza City more than a year ago, joined the celebrations for a time, despite the nerves rumbling beneath his joy.
"I cannot resist happiness," he told CBC's As It Happens in a call from the apartment he's been sharing with his mother, brother, wife and three children.
"I hope that this will end and we will witness this ceasefire … But I'm afraid, because the politicians get us to this corner each time."
Negotiators reached a phased deal on Wednesday that could end the war in Gaza between Israel and Hamas after 15 months of conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and fuelled broader tension across the Middle East.
The deal still needs to be ratified by the Israeli cabinet and government, but the prime minister of Qatar said it could come into effect as early as Sunday.
The arrangement includes the gradual release of hostages captured by Hamas-led militants during the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, in exchange for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons. It also includes a promise to increase humanitarian aid into the Gaza Strip, where hundreds of thousands of people have faced severe shortages of food, water, shelter and fuel for months.
"I want to congratulate my brothers and sisters from Palestine and Gaza for their patience, for their forbearance, for their endurance through the most difficult times, through starvation, through killing, through displacement, through humiliation, subjugation," Muhammad al-Tahir, 37, told freelance journalist Mohamed El Saife in Deir al-Balah after hearing about the ceasefire.
But he cautioned that a ceasefire did not mean an end to suffering.
"There are still hundreds of thousands of people that are injured, who need surgery, who need evacuation. There are still displaced people, people without homes, without jobs that there needs to be rebuilt," he said. "But of course, at least the hemorrhage has stopped."
The deal comes after months of start-and-stop negotiations that would raise the hopes of Palestinians and Israelis alike, only for them to be dashed when discussions fell apart. Some Palestinians were wary of celebrating prematurely.
"I have to believe that this time is different and it will work for going forward," said Shawa, a co-ordinator with the Palestinian NGO Network.
"We are looking to have a permanent ceasefire … We need this to be stopped and to give the peaceful people in Gaza Strip their chance of life as other people [have] all over the world."
Israel launched an all-out assault on Gaza after the attacks of Oct. 7, 2023. By Israeli tallies, attackers killed roughly 1,200 people and took around 250 hostages back to Gaza.
The retaliatory military campaign has killed some 46,000 Palestinians, according to health officials in the enclave. The Palestinian civil emergency service estimates that the bodies of 10,000 people may be trapped under the rubble, which would take the reported death toll to more than 50,000.
"I swear I can't describe my feelings. Very, very happy and sad at the same time," Umm Muhammad Wadi, 40, told El Saife.
"My son was martyred. I will go home and bury him. I want him to go home and rest."
Israel's onslaught has reduced much of the Gaza Strip to rubble and pushed most of the territory's 2.3 million people from their homes multiple times. Palestinian and UN officials had said there were no safe areas left in Gaza.
Humanitarian agencies say they also face acute shortages of food and medicine. A report from Amnesty International in December found Israel's assault met the legal threshold for the crime of genocide.
Israel, which has repeatedly rejected any allegation of genocide, called the report "entirely false."
Both the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross said they were preparing to massively scale up their aid operations. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stressed Wednesday the "priority now must be to ease the tremendous suffering caused by this conflict."
Israel has denied hindering humanitarian relief to Gaza and said it has facilitated the distribution of hundreds of truckloads of food, water, medical supplies and shelter equipment to warehouses and shelters.
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With files from Chloe Shantz-Hilkes, Mohamed El Saife, Yasmine Hassan and Sara Jabakhanji