Deir al-Balah, Gaza, and Beirut, Lebanon In the Gaza Strip, many Palestinians are celebrating, hoping that the devastating 15-month war will finally end.

Israel and Hamas have agreed to a ceasefire proposal, according to Qatar and the United States, which would include the exchange of prisoners and prisoners, and the return of Palestinians to their homes throughout Gaza. Israel says some issues remain, while Hamas has declared its acceptance.

In Gaza, the joy of Palestinians is accompanied by sadness, after they lived through the death of many of their loved ones, in an Israeli war that human rights groups and United Nations experts described as “genocide.”

Many Palestinians told Al Jazeera that they plan to return to their towns and villages the moment they have the opportunity, after being displaced by Israeli attacks and so-called “evacuation orders.”

“Once there is a ceasefire, I will return and accept my land in Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza,” said Umm Muhammad, a 66-year-old woman who lost two of her ten children when an Israeli bomb fell on her home. In December 2023.

“What I realized in this war is that your home, your country, and your children are all you have,” she told Al Jazeera.

Israel’s war on Gaza has ended More than 46,500 Palestinians were killed and more than 100,000 wounded. It began after the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7, 2023, in which 1,139 people were killed and about 250 captured.

During the Israeli offensive on Gaza, Israel systematically bombed schools, hospitals and IDP camps, destroying almost all basic services and life-supporting structures, according to the Times of India website. UN experts and human rights groups.

In September 2024, the United Nations Satellite Center found this 66% of the total buildings in the Gaza Strip Damaged or destroyed by Israeli attacks.

Israel also tightened its existing blockade of Gaza at the beginning of the war, causing mass starvation and a collapse of public order.

Now that the end of the misery is tantalizingly close, Palestinians are struggling to process everything – and everyone – they lost in the war.

“I have mixed feelings… but I pray to God that we can return to our normal lives without feeling unsafe,” Muhammad Abu Rai, a 47-year-old doctor, said from his office in Deir al-Balah.

Memory and sadness

Palestinians remember loved ones they lost to Israeli attacks ahead of the now expected ceasefire.

Lubna Al-Rayes, who was the principal of the American International Elementary School in Gaza City, said she lost one of her colleagues, Bilal Abu Samaan, who was rescuing people from under the rubble when he was bombed.

Al-Rayes said that she frequently calls Abu Samaan’s widow and asks about his young children.

“He was a great teacher and very kind. When he died, it affected me a lot and it still hurts me now,” Al-Rayes told Al Jazeera by phone from Cairo, Egypt, where she has lived with her husband and three children since last year.

“Bilal was truly one of the best people in the world,” she added.

Al-Rayes also spoke about her family’s home, which was burned to ashes by Israeli soldiers.

“There’s nothing left of the house,” she said with a sigh. “There are no more family photos, or any kind of memories [we retrieved]. “It’s all gone.”

Abu Rai also lost his home, but like Rais, he said it is the memory of his deceased colleagues and friends that causes him the most grief.

He believes the real number of victims far exceeds the official number, and he still cannot understand how he survived the past fifteen months.

“Survival in Gaza was always just a matter of luck,” he said.

Stay or go?

While many Palestinians look forward to returning and rebuilding their communities, others cannot imagine staying in the besieged Strip for much longer.

Mahmoud Saada, 52, said he does not believe there will be a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict despite the expected ceasefire.

He says he will take his young children and leave Gaza as soon as the crossing to Egypt is opened.

“I swear to God I will not return to Gaza. I am very tired and fed up,” he said from Deir al-Balah, where he sleeps with his family inside a small, crowded tent.

“I want to leave Gaza and go somewhere else,” he told Al Jazeera.

Abu Rai also said that he could not imagine staying in Gaza after everything had been completely destroyed.

He believes that most survivors are deeply traumatized and simply cannot fathom rebuilding their communities and lives again, especially since Gaza is already struggling to recover from several previous wars with Israel.

Right now, he suspects a lot of people are trying to find a way out, at least for the time being.

There has been a lot of destruction and we are starting from scratch again. Rebuilding our communities always steals a lot of time from our lives. “Every day we lose, we don’t come back,” he told Al Jazeera.

However, Abu Rai, Al-Rayes and Umm Muhammad all agree that the Palestinians will miss Gaza if they leave, making the move difficult for many.

In the end, they believe most people will stay or return to Gaza, if they can.

“We need to come back eventually, you know?” Al-Rais told Al Jazeera.

“There’s really no place like home.”