Palestinians throughout the besieged Gaza Strip spent New Year’s Eve on Tuesday reflecting on how their lives have been upended, their homes destroyed and their loved ones killed by Israeli forces.
Many are hoping that 2025 will finally bring an end to Israel’s devastating war on the Palestinian enclave.
Many of the area’s residents spent Tuesday trying to clear out water from their tents after heavy rainfall caused flooding in parts of the strip.
The freezing temperatures and flooding have already killed seven people, including six infants, and international aid agencies have said Israel is hampering aid deliveries.
In 15 months of Israel’s war on Gaza, Israeli forces have devastated the enclave’s civilian infrastructure – from residences to hospitals, schools and UN shelters.
With Israeli forces imposing a siege on northern Gaza earlier this year, Palestinians still living there face death from Israeli fire, starvation, cold or disease.
“The year 2024 was filled with death and destruction. Our people have been devastated. We live in tents and we have no place to find happiness,” said Umm Jamal Harb, a displaced Palestinian in Gaza.
“We suffer from a lack of water, the cold and polluted streets. This is not how our lives used to be.”
“The year 2024 was filled with death and destruction.”
Displaced Palestinians living in tents in Deir al-Balah are hoping for an end to Israel’s ongoing war on Gaza and to return home in 2025 pic.twitter.com/n4BxdlYJNe
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 31, 2024
The war began in October 2023, after Hamas and other Palestinian fighters in Gaza launched an attack on southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people.
Israel responded with a devastating and indiscriminate bombing campaign, followed by a ground invasion of Gaza.
So far, the official death toll of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces stands at 45,541.
A report from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said that, in addition to those killed, about 100,000 Palestinians have left Gaza since the war began. This means Gaza’s population has declined by 6 percent over the course of the war.
‘The most difficult year’
Even if the war were to end now, a return to life as it was before October 2023 would likely take years.
The physical damage to Gaza’s infrastructure is estimated at more than $18bn, equivalent to 97 percent of the combined total gross domestic product (GDP) of Gaza and the West Bank in 2022.
Israel’s war has also set back the strip’s human development by 69 years, according to the UN Development Programme (UNDP).
If the blockade remains in place, a UN report from October estimates that it would take 350 years for Gaza’s GDP to recover to 2022 levels.
Still, Palestinians living under daily bombardment are hoping that 2025 will at least bring an end to Israel’s military campaign. Many wish that in the coming year, they will no longer hear the buzz of Israeli drones and the deafening blasts of Israeli fighter jets in the sky and tanks on the ground.
“The year 2024 was the most difficult year. I lost many loved ones, including my father and friends, since the beginning of the year,” said Wafaa Hajjaj, a displaced Palestinian.
“I hope the new year will be much better, filled with peace, goodness and stability. I wish for the return of security and safety and for the war to end.”
Earlier this month, new hope was injected into the stalled negotiations over a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
A Palestinian source told Middle East Eye on 16 December that a “new dynamic” had emerged in the talks in Doha.
However, after the Israeli negotiating team returned home to Israel from Qatar, Hamas issued a statement saying that Israel had imposed new conditions, ultimately delaying the possibility of a ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu refuted this claim, blaming Hamas for the delay.
Amid the setbacks, US President-elect Donald Trump is set to take his seat in the Oval Office on 20 January.
Trump has vowed that there will be “hell to pay” if a ceasefire deal is not reached between the two parties.
“We hope that calm will prevail in 2025, that it will be free of wars, full of security and safety for our Palestinian people and that everyone can return home,” said displaced Palestinian Walid al-Masry.
