18 December 2025
In the Gaza Strip, following the most recent ceasefire agreement reached on 9 October 2025, families can be seen returning to the north – not to their homes, but to the memories of what once stood.
Along Al-Rashid Street, which stretches across the length of the Gaza Strip coastline, trucks rumble past crumbled neighborhoods, piled high with whatever belongings that families have managed to maintain throughout numerous moves. On the very ground where living rooms, kitchens, and children’s bedrooms once were, families now pitch tents directly atop the rubble.
Across Gaza City, makeshift shelters cling to the edges of shattered buildings, bringing pops of color into a vast grey landscape of ruins. Families cook, wash, and rebuild fragments of routine amid collapsed walls. Children sprint barefoot between the debris, clutching empty jerry cans, their ears tuned for the sharp repeated blasts of a truck horn—the signal that precious water has arrived.
With restrictions preventing the entry of most supplies, the ruins around them are not just reminders of loss; they are all they have left. The rubble contains valuables, photographs, and sometimes, the bodies of loved ones.
Khalid from Gaza City was sheltered in a nearby school while his home was destroyed by an airstrike. His family returned with a tent to live on the debris that remains.
Two of his seven children were killed during similar airstrikes.
“I feel close to my children when I stay here,” Khalid explains.
Though his neighborhood provides a sense of familiarity, Khalid’s family struggles to attend to their basic needs. There are no regular services provided in the area.
“We have no water. No electricity. No life.”
Khalid picks through the debris surrounding his home to sell small parts and tools that he finds to make an income to support his family. He hopes that the rubble will be removed soon so that he can rebuild his home.
“This is my home. My land. My identity.”
To date, UNDP has cleared over 190,000 tons of rubble using the limited machinery available inside Gaza. These efforts are reopening access routes and enabling aid to reach people, but conditions remain extremely fragile, and sustained safety guarantees and access are crucial. The rubble is crushed into a powder and used to level roads and areas around communal kitchens and protect shelter sites from flooding.
Her youngest son, is studying online, although the mobile connection in Jabaliya is unstable at best. He often takes the family’s mobile phone on long walks to determine the best location for connection and quickly downloads lessons to practice math and science.
“I hope they rebuild my school. I want to go back and continue learning,” shares Abdulrahman.
“Here, there is suffering everywhere. I just want all women in Gaza to live in dignity and peace.”
Bushra and family plan to remain living on top of the ruins of her home – she feels comfortable with the neighbors she has known for years.
“Here, it feels like home for us.”
Maintaining a feeling of “home” is vital to support Gaza’s social fabric following the brutal two-year war. As part of UNDP’s transitional neighborhood approach to early recovery in Gaza, services are provided as a package in selected locations so that the basic needs of families can meet them where they are – debris removal, water, latrines, solid waste disposal, wastewater infrastructure support, and emergency employment.
Nufuz and her family are one of four families also taking shelter in a destroyed home in Jabaliya. The roof of the house has caved in, and the home is not structurally sound.
“My husband needs constant care. His back was injured during the war, and he can’t do anything. I must walk far to collect wood and water daily.”
In Gaza, the cost of fuel is exorbitant, and wood is often used to light fires for cooking.
Nufuz’s family was displaced countless times during the war – too many timed for her to count.
They returned during the most recent ceasefire and have no plans to move again.
“There is no choice for us now. We will stay here.”
When it rains, water enters the home through multiple openings in the roof.
“We’re very worried about winter. The heavy rain is coming.”
Far beyond a technical task, clearing the rubble and implementing basic services in Gaza is a means of restoring dignity and hope for the nearly two million Palestinians who are internally displaced.
Document Sources: UNDP Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People (PAPP)
Subject: Armed conflict, Assistance to the Palestinian people, Children, Gaza Strip, House demolitions, Refugees and displaced persons
Publication Date: 18/12/2025
URL source: https://undparabic.exposure.co/this-is-home-rebuilding-life-amid-gazas-rubble