When I heard that the latest round of ceasefire negotiations was happening, I felt nothing. I had zero interest in these talks. Countless times I’d followed the news and put my hopes into the idea that the politicians would decide it was time to stop the massacre of my people. Countless times I’d been disappointed.

On October 9, 2025, at 2 a.m., it was quiet outside my family’s tent, where we’ve family has lived since Israel drove us from our home in Gaza City. I was reading the latest news like a child searching for even the smallest hope of going back home.

“This is a great day for the world,” the U.S. president said when the first phase of a ceasefire agreement was announced. “This is a wonderful day, a wonderful day for everybody.”

It has taken two years of unrelenting genocide for us to finally hear this. I keep wondering: Is it real? Might our suffering actually end soon?

This partial ceasefire deal comes amid the most horrific phase the Gaza Strip has witnessed since the war began. Gaza City has been under a rapidly advancing Israeli occupation, putting the roughly 200,000 people who remain there into unimaginable circumstances. According to the latest reports, Israel has displaced nearly 900,000 people from the city.

I became one of them just one month ago. It feels like a whole year. I left everything behind and fled to the south, where Israel has said it would be safer, but bombs still rain down around us. Now, the thought of returning home again brings life back into me. It brings peace even for a rare moment.

“Will we go back home? Can I play with my cousins again?” my 5-year-old brother asked our mother. Even the youngest among us are clinging to the promise of starting our lives again, lives that have been on hold since 2023.

I hope Israel hasn’t destroyed my home, as it is my last remaining hope.

If the war really does come to an end, it could protect families from having to sleep with their children in the streets of Gaza, with no safe shelter to prevent them. It could shield us from the harshness of the approaching winter storms. It could end our starvation and allow us to access medicine to treat illnesses.

A true end to the war could protect us from the overwhelming absence of peace, comfort, and dignity we have suffered throughout these two brutal years. 

Israel expects us to feel grateful for obtaining our basic rights to life and liberty — as if they were favors, not ordinary human rights.

My heart pounded as I followed the news last night. It was “the final minutes,” all the channels reported. Everyone was ready to sign. I watched my people finally smile — finally feel a moment of comfort — after two long years of sadness and grief. 

Why did it take two full years? Were they waiting for us to suffer even more? Children, women, and men have been killed in this genocide. Generations are growing up and being born amid these unfathomable horrors. This war has shaped new identities — minds and hearts forged in pain, loss, and resilience.

Now, Israel expects us to feel grateful for obtaining our basic rights to life and liberty — as if they were favors, not ordinary human rights.

In the tent camps where I am now displaced, the word “ceasefire” feels empty. The last round of ceasefire negotiations began with enthusiasm. It ended with my family displaced in a tent. 

A ceasefire cannot rebuild their homes, or restore their peace and stability.

The suffering is far beyond what any agreement can fix. I’ve only lived in a tent for one month, and already I feel suffocated. Some have been here for two years. A ceasefire cannot rebuild their homes, or restore their peace and stability.

“I have no home. I’ll stay in this tent,” said Abu Ihsan, a young man who recently became our neighbor in shared displacement.

And for the families of the martyrs, a ceasefire will not bring their loved ones back. A daughter has lost her mother; a wife, her husband; a friend, their lifelong companion. The fighting may stop, but their grief has only just begun. People post photos and beg their loved ones to come back. Who will have the heart to tell them the truth?

Ceasefire doesn’t mean the end of our suffering. It is simply a step toward justice after endless days and nights filled with fear and violence against us in Gaza. It doesn’t bring back the schools, universities, hospitals, streets, or homes that Israel bombed. It cannot heal the trauma we carry from those long nights of pain and terror. The sounds of drones and explosions will forever echo in our minds. A ceasefire cannot erase that.

As ceasefire headlines fill the news, we are told to be hopeful. Is our hope fragile, or truly impossible? After Israel broke the last ceasefire in March, fear filled our hearts. We told each other to balance our enthusiasm, as we’re dealing with Israel, and the word “Israel” carried the weight of broken promises. 

Yet we are chasing every chance to reclaim our peace. This ceasefire might offer us a moment to begin healing from the pain we have carried for so long.

I cannot wait to see my people happy again — to hear children laugh, to watch students return to their schools. I long to see cafes filled with friends, tables full of food, and faces free of pain.

I have waited two long years to document this news: I have survived this genocide. I am alive, and I write in hope for better days ahead. 

Gaza breathes, again.

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This post was originally published on The Intercept.