Ceasefire in Gaza would provide a vital respite from suffering

"The announcement of a provisional ceasefire deal in Gaza offers hope for a vital respite from a devastating war, though it comes tragically late," said MSF USA chief executive officer Avril Benoît. "Our teams have witnessed and experienced immense suffering and the loss of countless lives. While we look forward to seeing the agreement signed and implemented, we call for this fragile relief to be more than a pause, so that people can rebuild their lives, reclaim their dignity, and mourn those killed and all that’s been lost in over a year of war."

"A massive, urgent scale-up of humanitarian aid is needed to meet the catastrophic humanitarian and medical needs of people," Benoît added. "While the ceasefire must be sustained, it is only the first step in addressing the overwhelming humanitarian, psychological, and medical needs in Gaza. We urge all parties to ensure humanitarian aid reaches people across the Gaza Strip now."

Below, two MSF staff members in Gaza describe their feelings after the announcement.

“Our hearts almost stopped from happiness”

The ceasefire news was like a shock—our hearts almost stopped from happiness. Finally we will go back to our houses, the situation will be stable. We will not hear the sounds of the bombings, we will not drive the car very fast assuming that a missile is falling on us, all these things we have been living through for the past year and a half. This is the safety that we are waiting for. 

How will we go back? Will we go on foot or in our car?If we go back by car, what we will take with us? What are the priorities that we will take with us? Finally, we said we will just take ourselves and go. We were thinking of going by car, but then we said let’s go on foot. Let’s see our people, relatives, our loved ones, and our houses. Let’s see our area, how it looks like now.

My children [a 2-year-old and 4-month-old] do not know what a home means. They only know a tent and the feeling of being in a tent; they do not know the safe feeling of a home; they do not know the feeling of having a toy. 

My children now know what Gaza is and what is the meaning of returning back home. I am happy to see them happy like this.

“People are hungry for peace”

For more than 400 days, we didn't hear any kind of celebration, singing, or dancing. Yesterday at night, Gaza started to celebrate, to sing, with children in the streets that you could hear singing songs. I cannot really describe how people are hungry for peace. And they were all singing songs that they would go back to the north, to their homes.

There were a lot of my colleagues that were crying. I mean, even before the announcement of the agreement of the ceasefire, they started to cry. They cried, and they had feelings of grief. Some of them started to remember the ones they lost at the beginning of the war. I mean, all of these sad feelings will start, I think, with the [end] of the war. Especially when the people who are displaced in the south go back to their homes in the north and Gaza City, and will see that it is not the same home that they evacuated. They will come to see a destroyed house. I think it will be very difficult. And again, I will say that fear will end, and pain will start.

I had mixed feelings personally. At one point I wanted to smile and laugh and sing—and at the same time cry, grieve. We will cry about a lot of things. We will cry for the people we lost, friends, family members. We will cry for the orphans. We will cry for the widows in Gaza. We will cry for the disabled people. We will cry for the homes that have been destroyed.

At least the ceasefire will stop the blood, will stop the killing, will stop the injuries—because every minute in Gaza for the last 400 days, it's just blood. You know, the war doesn’t kill only bodies, it tears apart your soul and your hope and leaves you with a kind of silence that screams pain.