After months in tents and shelters, the Nassar family return to a scene of destruction in Jabaliya

(20 Feb 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jabaliya, Northern Gaza Strip - 17 February 2025
1. Person standing inside his damaged house watching local resident Khalid Nassar digging through rubble for the body of his son
2. Various of Nassar digging in the rubble
3. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khalid Nassar, local resident:
"I have been searching for my son, who has been missing since October 13, 2024. The house was bombed while he was showering inside it and (he) remains in the house. I am searching for his body. I am digging, breaking the stones and taking out the sand, perhaps I will find his body to bury him."
4. Various of Nassar cutting iron
5. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khalid Nassar, local resident:
"Since the beginning of the truce, I have been coming every day to work for four to five hours every day, and I continue to work. Heavy equipment has not entered Gaza, there are no bulldozers and there is no civil defense."
6. Various of Nassar digging
7. Various of local resident Khadra Abu Libda walking through debris to their temporary home
8. Various of Libda lighting a fire
9. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khadra Abu Libda, local resident:
"When we go to get water, we face great suffering and we make a great effort as we walk long distances carrying two gallons, and we return to cook and wash. All day we are next to this fire because we did not get cooking gas. We sent the gas jar and (we) wait until we get it full. All our lives are misery and tiredness, as you can see the destruction, and all day we are in misery."
10. Libda tending to the fire
11. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khadra Abu Libda, local resident:
"A great effort and it's suffering. You see, we are facing the fire. Our eyes have become sore because of the fire. We used to use gas before but now there is no gas."
12. Pots hanging on a wall on top of writing reading (Arabic) "Hamas”
13. Various of Libda sitting next to fire

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jabaliya, Northern Gaza Strip - 18 February 2025
14. Various of Nassar carrying empty containers and walking through debris
15. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Khalid Nassar, local resident:
"We walk among the rubble, carrying gallons, most of them torn (damaged), and we wait a long time, from the morning we run here and there, until they provide us with water, but no one provides us with water."
16. People walking among damaged buildings
17. Various of Nassar carrying containers of water
18. Various of Nassar emptying the water

ASSOCIATED PRESS
Jabaliya, Northern Gaza Strip - 17 February 2025
19. Various of Libda sitting on the floor and washing her family's clothes in a bowl
20. Various of Libda hanging clothes on a washing line
STORYLINE:
A family in the northern Gaza city of Jabaliya attempts to rebuild their lives among the destruction left after the Israeli strikes on the region.

The Nassar family managed to assemble a semblance of their home’s old living room. A sofa and some chairs survived, along with a small table they can gather around to eat.

The room’s wall had been almost entirely blown away, so they hung sheets over the gaping hole, hiding the mound of wreckage outside.

Buried somewhere under that rubble, Khalid Nassar knows, is the body of his son Mahmoud. It has lain there unretrievable for the past four months since he was killed in an Israeli airstrike.

This has been the struggle for displaced Palestinians returning to their homes in Gaza under the nearly month-old ceasefire.

To re-create some bit of normal lives amid the death and destruction left by 16 months of Israeli bombardment and ground offensives against Hamas fighters.














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