We thought returning home would end the nightmare.

After months of fleeing bombardment, sleeping in tents, schools, or under makeshift nylon sheets, many families finally walked back to their homes in northern Gaza during the fragile ceasefire in January 2025. The roads were lined with rubble. Our houses were broken shells, neighbourhoods unrecognisable. Yet we carried a fragile hope: that by stepping back onto our land, even among ruins, we were reclaiming our lives.

But as soon as we returned, the headlines followed us. Terms like “mass relocations”, “humanitarian cities,” and “population transfers” began to appear, suggesting that even after everything we had endured, our next destination might not be what remains of our homes, but military-controlled camps in the far south of Gaza, w

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