SOURCE :- THE AGE NEWS
For more than 15 months, Gaza has endured relentless violence from Israel, its people living in unimaginable terror and grief.
Now, as the ceasefire takes hold, my family is left in the eerie silence that follows the bombs, overwhelmed by a fragile sense of relief, yet gripped by uncertainty.
Images taken by family members of Ramia Abdo Sultan on their return to their homes in southern Gaza.
The question is not whether the damage can be repaired, but whether the violence will return. And if it does, will there be anything left to destroy?
The photos my cousins, aunts and uncles send show a barely recognisable Gaza. Homes, schools, hospitals, businesses reduced to rubble. My family, scattered across the city’s north and south, has endured horrors I cannot imagine. Those who survived are left with the charred remains of their lives, and face a painful decision: risk returning or wait to see if the ceasefire will hold.
Ramia Abdo Sultan’s family members bury a relative in the courtyard of their home in southern Gaza.
My family, including my husband’s relatives, once thrived – they were entrepreneurs, business owners, people who helped others. Now, they’re trying to piece together what’s left of their lives. One relative shared: “People go to see the ruins of their homes and then return to their tents heartbroken. The destruction is beyond us. No camera lens can capture the barbarity.”
The devastation is so complete, so personal, that words and images fail to convey its depth.
Despite the trauma, my family has chosen to return and see what is left. For some, the houses are uninhabitable, forcing them to move back to makeshift tents that offer little protection against the winter chills. Others whose homes are still partially standing clear rubble to create a semblance of shelter. Rumours of caravans for the displaced offer faint hope. According to the UN, at least 1.9 million people – or about 90 per cent of the population – across the Gaza Strip are internally displaced. Such efforts feel like a drop in the ocean.
Even hope of shelter is clouded by the destruction of Gaza’s infrastructure – water pipes, electricity, medical facilities, all obliterated. The basic necessities for life are gone.
Amid this destruction is another urgent task: locating missing family members and burying those who have been killed. One of my husband’s relatives had to be buried on the grounds of their home because it was too dangerous to leave. This was their reality.
When I speak with family, their exhaustion is palpable. The ceasefire offers a pause, but not relief from grief, confusion or dread. Some are still digging for the bodies of loved ones who have been missing for months. Among the ruins, personal belongings – jewellery, photos, mementos – are being unearthed. But nothing can undo the pain of what has been taken from them.
The remains of the home of Ramia Abdo Sultan’s relatives in Southern Gaza, photographed when they returned on January 20.
The statistics we hear – 46,000 killed – fail to capture the horror. Thousands remain trapped under rubble. The toll on the land, the people, the culture, is immeasurable. While the ceasefire may stop the bombs for now, the scars of this violence will linger for generations.
Even before this genocide, Gaza barely survived. For 17 years, a brutal Israeli blockade suffocated every part of life. Necessities – electricity, water, food, fuel, medical supplies – were always in short supply. Now, with the infrastructure in ruins, rebuilding feels impossible. Yet, the world speaks of the ceasefire as if it resolves decades of Israeli oppression, apartheid, blockade and illegal occupation that fuelled this genocide.
The reality is this: a ceasefire is not a victory. It is the bare minimum.
As I watch my family try to rebuild from the other side of the world, I’m reminded that the work ahead is about more than reconstruction. It is about survival, resistance, and freedom. True healing for Gaza requires dismantling the systems that allowed this destruction to happen.
My family’s pain, their sumud – steadfastness – is woven into my own sense of self. Their struggle in Gaza is not separate from me; it lives in every conversation, message, image they send. Their uncertainty about the future is my uncertainty, their exhaustion, my exhaustion.
This is not just about rebuilding homes, it’s about survival in an environment that continues to demand they – we – disappear. And as long as my family is there, piecing together what Israel destroyed, my connection to them, and to Palestine, will endure.
Ramia Abdo-Sultan is a lawyer and an executive committee member of the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network.
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