Ahmed Ahmed reports:

As soon as the ceasefire came into effect in Gaza on Sunday, Hamza Othman had only one thought in his mind: to go and see whether his home was still standing.

The 22-year-old had refused to leave the Fallujah neighborhood of Jabalia refugee camp for over a year — even after he was wounded by an Israeli airstrike that killed his mother and brother as they sold candy from a stall in front of the house last May. In October, however, as Israeli forces intensified their attacks on the north and closed in on his neighborhood, Othman decided he had no choice but to flee south with his aunt’s family to Gaza City.

Othman knew there was a high chance that his home had sustained damage since then: Jabalia camp was one of the main loci of Israel’s 100-day campaign of annihilation in the north of the Strip. But the scale of devastation that he found upon his return was beyond anything he could have imagined.

“When I reached my neighborhood, I couldn’t even recognize where my house once stood,” he told +972. “The entire neighborhood was completely bombed.”

The shock of finding his home reduced to rubble left Othman unable to speak for two hours. His family of 14 is now not just displaced but homeless. “I was a homebody,” he said. “My favorite time of the day was when I was sitting in the living room catching up with my mother. Now both are gone.” [Continue reading…]