‘Nothing is left’: Israel’s military tells Gaza residents to go home but they find only rubble

By Mohammad Al Sawalhi, Abeer Salman and Tim Lister, CNN

Deir Al Balah, Gaza (CNN) — For the first time since the Israeli military began ground operations in Gaza in October, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has sent out messages to people’s phones and on social media saying that the residents of some areas can return to their neighborhoods.

The IDF posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Thursday that people who had been ordered to leave three neighborhoods of Deir Al Balah in central Gaza could go home.

CNN interviewed a number of families who had returned to find scenes of destruction.

One man, Abdulfattah Al Bourdaini, said: “We came home and found nothing, no power, no gas, no house, and we cannot change our clothes.”

All he had been able to salvage was a teddy bear for the son he hoped one day to have.

“I am penniless like the day I was born,” Al Bourdaini said. “I have nothing. I came to check on my house, didn’t find a house or anything, nothing is left… There is nothing left to cry about.”

His brother, Musa Al Bourdaini, surveyed the scene in disbelief, telling CNN: “Why would they want to destroy this house? This house could have housed 120 people… What did they do to the house? They didn’t find a single human being in it, but yet they hit it with missiles and destroyed an entire neighborhood.”

He said he had come home with a key to his own, neighboring building – but had found no house for it. “Now we will bring a tent, that is if we find a tent, and put it next to our house,” he added.

Several people said they had been displaced from the neighborhood about 10 days ago, when the Israeli military posted on X and dropped leaflets telling people to evacuate the area for their own security. Many Gaza residents have been displaced multiple times since October, worsening the ongoing humanitarian crisis; experts also warn that evacuation orders have complicated aid efforts.

In its post on X on Thursday, the IDF said that “following the operations against terror organizations in the (Deir Al Balah) area, the IDF is enabling the return to these blocks which are part of the designated Humanitarian Area.”

On Friday, the IDF announced that people in three more blocks in the Khan Younis area of southern Gaza could also return home, saying on X: “‎After the IDF’s activities against terrorist organizations in the area, you can return to these blocks. In the meantime, the humanitarian zone will be adapted and those areas will from now on be classified as part of the humanitarian zone.”

In a statement Friday detailing its operations in recent weeks, the Israeli military said “troops of the 98th Division have completed their divisional operation in the Khan Younis and Deir Al Balah area, after about a month of simultaneous above and underground operational activity.”

Israeli forces had “eliminated over 250 terrorists,” and destroyed terrorist infrastructure including six underground tunnel routes in the course of the operation, the statement said. “In some of the tunnel routes the troops eliminated terrorists and located terrorist hideouts and weapons.”

Abdul Raouf Radwan said that he and his family had moved into a tent closer to the coast to escape the bombardment. They had returned hoping to reoccupy their home, “hoping to find a life, find something, find a room to live in,” he said. “We found nothing but destruction. Our dreams were destroyed, our memories were destroyed… The house that our ancestors built was all gone.”

His brother, Muhammad Ramzi Radwan, said he had already lost a son as a result of the Israeli military’s operations. “A young man of 30, who built himself up from scratch, education, marriage, a son. All is gone, nothing is left.”

“My message is to stop the war,” Radwan said. “There is no time left to rebuild ourselves… We have endured this. This is beyond our capacity.”

Yamen al Tabi’s house was also destroyed. He said the family had left the neighborhood out of fear and returned to find their home completely ruined.

“I wish I had been buried in the house. I wish I had died in the house and not returned and seen the scene that I saw,” he told CNN. “Where will we go now without shelter?”

Raouf Ayesh said he and his children had taken refuge in tents. “And we said, ‘Oh God, let us return to our homes and find our belongings, our clothes, our winter clothes.” But they returned to nothing but debris.

Ayesh appeared to place some of the blame on Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar. “Let Sinwar be satisfied,” he said. “Can you hear? They ruined us. We were not like this.”

Hanan Al-Arabeed, a widow who had returned to her home with her children, found it in ruins. “Should I go to a tent I am now in the street, I have two disabled children. I did not take anything with me from my house, there is total destruction as you can see,” she said.

Al-Arabeed had harsh words for Arab governments, saying: “We demand that the Arab countries stand with us, they make us feel that we are not Muslims…. The negotiations are at whose expense? At the expense of the martyrs, at the expense of the blood of children that is wasted.”

Her sister, Umm Kareem Al-Arabeed, said she was collecting whatever she could from the ruins of her apartment.

“Unfortunately, Israel has made its decision to eliminate the Gaza Strip. Indeed, it wants to eliminate the Palestinian people so that they do not raise their heads from here for 100 years. But you know, we are a steadfast people, coping people,” she said.

“We will start from the beginning and anew. We will start over,” she added.

Nearly 84% of the enclave has been placed under evacuation orders since the start of the war, according to the United Nations’ main agency for Palestinian humanitarian relief, UNRWA.

All the while, the Israel-designated “humanitarian zone” has been steadily shrinking. In the past month alone, the IDF has reduced this zone by 38% – with the remaining space making up just over a tenth of Gaza’s total area, according to a CNN analysis.

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