Rafah residents hesitant to return from shelters to wrecked homes

RAFAH, Gaza Strip — Many Palestinians say they feel hesitant about leaving the shelters they fled to after being displaced by war and returning to the wreckage of their former homes in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.

“We wanted to come back to put up a tent during the ceasefire. As you can see, it has become a ghost town. There is no water. There is nothing. There is even no leveled ground you can stay on,” says Hussein Barakat.

Footage shot by The Associated Press shows displaced residents digging through rubble with bare hands. Youssef al-Sharqawi sifts through the ruins of his destroyed home to try and retrieve clothes for his five children, including his infant son who has struggled to tolerate the winter’s cold at night.

Mohammed al-Ballas, another displaced Rafah homeowner, says that without basic necessities — including water and electricity — it will be difficult to return home in Rafah for good. Pointing at collapsed buildings, piles of rubble, and destroyed roads, he says he will remain in his shelter for now because there isn’t even space to erect a tent in the ruins of his former neighborhood.

“Even if you tried to tie up an animal here, it would not live,” he says.