‘My heart is split in two’: The women waiting to return to northern Gaza

Women in Gaza tell their stories of loss and grief as they plan what to do when they return home.

Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip – Inshirah Darabeh has just one thought on her mind as she prepares to leave the home of her in-laws near Deir el-Balah and travel to her home in Gaza City: finding the body of her daughter, Maram, and giving her a dignified burial.

“I am not going back to find my home, all I want is to find her grave and put her name on a tombstone,” she says. Inshirah, 55, will walk more than 10km (6 miles) through rubble and bomb craters to reach her home. She thinks it will take at least three hours.

Inshirah is overwhelmed with mixed feelings of dread, pain and relief, she says, as she finally leaves the place she has sheltered in for the past year from Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, which has left more than 46,000 Palestinians dead and many thousands more unaccounted for and assumed dead under the rubble. Most of those killed have been women and children.

In accordance with the terms of the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas which came into effect last Sunday, on day seven of the ceasefire – Saturday this week – internally displaced Palestinians were to be allowed to return without inspection by Israeli soldiers to their homes in the north, which has been under a deadly military siege since October 2024.

However, this was temporarily thrown into doubt on Saturday following the second prisoner exchange between Hamas and Israel. Israel said it would not allow the return of Palestinians to northern Gaza until an issue involving the release of one captive, Arbel Yehoud, is resolved.