Voices of life return to Gaza, but for how long?
After two years of bombardment and silence, the hum of seas, birds, and children’s cries are audible again across Gaza — a fragile lull in a war-scarred land
Iftikhar Gilani
ANKARA (MNTV) – Walking along Gaza’s Mediterranean coastline, more than two years after the war began, Palestinians are hearing sounds they feared lost forever: the crash of waves, birdsong, and the wail of infants.
In the dark days of relentless air strikes, explosions, and chaos, the daily soundtrack of war overwhelmed every other sound.
Speaking online, Gaza-based journalist Ahmed Darmali confessed he had grown so accustomed to the rumble of shells that the sea’s waves had become a distant memory.
Now, he says, “I sometimes pause and listen, did I imagine that?”
Twenty-four-year-old Palestinian mother Wiam Al-Masri said that since the ceasefire she has, for the first time in years, heard the cry of her two-month-old son, Samih. The ceasefire pact, signed in the Egyptian city of Sharm el-Sheikh some 300 km away, has silenced the drone buzz and missile roars that had come to dominate daily life.
“Before October 2023, we used to walk by the shore,” Darmali said. “But for two years, every moment was about survival. We didn’t even know how to remember beauty.”
Wiam described the terror: drones hovering above their tent, breath freezing, then screams, then bombs. Now she listens to birds in the palm leaves, the wind through rubble — and her child’s voice.
The current truce, introduced under a U.S.-brokered 20-point plan, has halted air and ground attacks. Israeli forces have pulled back into predefined zones. But analysts warn this is not a peace, only a pause.
Still, for war-torn Palestinians, a pause is precious. As they move to neighborhoods from camps, they find localities flattened: Zarka, Al-Nuseirat, Al-Ghubari, Jabalya — all reduced to ruins.
At the waterfront, 73-year-old fisherman Ahmed Al-Hissi repairs his nets. He says learning “the voice of peace” will take time. His son Khalid was killed near the port in November 2023.
Khalid’s wife Thuraya died days later when their building collapsed due to Israeli strikes. Their three children survived only because they stayed on the ground floor.
“Night after night we would wake to blasts. Every sound meant death,” he recalled.
“Now silence feels unreal.”
For many, the ceasefire has brought both relief and deep unease. The agreement was comparatively simple on paper, complex in reality. Its first phase went smoothly — mostly because many key obligations were on Hamas. But the harder test lies ahead: whether Israel follows suit.
Implementation and governance
In a press briefing in Ankara, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan emphasized that Gaza must not be returned to its state of October 7, 2023, saying that would reintroduce the very causes of war. Turkiye, along with the U.S., Qatar, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia, will monitor implementation on the ground.
Foreign policy expert Ramzi Chatin says that this deal differs from past ones because U.S. President Trump is directly involved. He argued that Israel may find it hard to sustain a humanitarian catastrophe and diplomatic isolation.
Addressing Israel’s parliament, Trump acknowledged its isolation in the world. He warned that Israel cannot maintain enmity with the global community. In Western capitals, protests against Israel’s actions have grown in scale.
What comes next is far less certain. The U.S. Central Command is preparing a task force outside Gaza that may support the proposed international stabilization force. No countries have yet been named, though Indonesia has offered troops.
A contentious clause says Hamas will not govern Gaza going forward. Observers argue the group will continue to wield influence as a social and political force, even if not formally in power.
Back in March, Hamas sources told this writer that their leaders were ready to give up direct governance if a credible Palestinian authority took over. In July 2024, 14 factions, including Fatah and Hamas, signed a unity agreement in Beijing that envisioned a joint interim leadership.
One name that has emerged is Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah leader imprisoned in Israel since 2002. His release had been a central bargaining point in earlier truce talks in January. But Palestinian officials claim Mahmoud Abbas personally lobbied to block Barghouti’s freedom, even threatening him with exile from the West Bank. His wife confirmed the threat.
The reverberations of this ceasefire spread beyond Gaza. In Lebanon, Hezbollah, which had clashed with Israel along the border, is softening its tone and exploring new partnerships with Saudi Arabia. Hezbollah leaders assert their weapons remain aimed at Israel.
In Yemen, the Houthi movement hinted it would temper attacks on Israeli ships if the ceasefire holds. Previously, they had struck shipping routes as a show of support for Gaza.
The pause gives them time to consolidate gains and claim domestic legitimacy.
Awaiting normal life
Meanwhile, Palestinians await whether they can resume something like normal life. Experts warn: the ceasefire is only a chance, not a solution. Real peace will come only when life’s voices return in full.
Many families never held funerals during the war. Wiam still hears the blast that killed her six siblings, aunt, and niece. On Day 36 of the war, her family was wiped out. Wiam and her twin, Wasam, survived badly wounded.
Now Wiam recites Quranic verses to lull her son to sleep.
“In two years, every sound became a signal of death,” she says. “Imagine when your world is full of nothing but destruction, you begin to believe death breathes with you.”
She cannot yet call this pause “life.”
Every shelter in Gaza harbors a story, and in every story is a particular sound, the whistle before a bomb, the slam of doors shutting, dogs barking at distant shells.
Ahmed Al-Hissi still hears his son’s last scream. War leaves debris and echoes. Ceasefires erase neither.
As dusk falls and the tents of Al-Mawasi fill with the glow of mobiles and stoves, a generator hums. It is not a drone, it is a machine. It is ordinary. And for now, that is enough.
A ceasefire can not bring back the dead. It can not rebuild the broken city or foretell which leaders will prevail. But for a moment, it gives people a chance to listen again, to children’s breath, a boiling kettle, and the slow return of everyday life.
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