After a week of calm, Yousef Hammash woke up to the resounding sounds of explosions in the southern Gaza town of Rafah on Friday. The brief sense of security he had felt was over, he thought.
“Seven weeks of madness were followed by seven days of humanitarian pause,” Mr. Hammash, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s advocacy representative in Gaza, said in a voice message. “And now we are back in the vicious circle of violence.”
The region’s fragile seven-day ceasefire collapsed early Friday and Gaza was rocked again as Israel resumed one of the fiercest bombing campaigns of the 21st century. In the following hours, Gaza health authorities said 178 Palestinians were killed and another 578 people were injured.
The ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas, which came into force on November 24, provided for the release of 240 detained Palestinians and 81 hostages taken by Hamas and other militant groups on October 7. Another two dozen mostly foreign Thai agricultural workers were also released under negotiations separate from the ceasefire agreement.
The ceasefire also allowed for a greater number of deliveries of humanitarian aid and fuel to Gaza than in previous weeks of war.
Israeli and Hamas officials said the deal failed because they could not agree on further exchanges of hostages and Palestinian prisoners. Israel and Hamas also blamed each other for violating the ceasefire.
Mr Hammash said the Norwegian Refugee Council, a non-governmental organization based in Oslo, had used the temporary ceasefire to develop a plan for distributing aid. But when fighting resumed, his teams stopped operations, he said.
The latest phase of Israel’s campaign against Gaza is expected to focus on the southern half of the region, where many Palestinians seek safety.
Some Palestinians near Khan Younis said the Israeli military had ordered them to evacuate further south to Rafah, which lies on the Gaza-Egypt border. But this city was also hit by air raids. Many Palestinians and observers claim that no place in the Gaza Strip can be considered safe.
Mahmoud el-Khaldi, a 17-year-old from Gaza City, suffered a fractured skull and bleeding into his lungs, liver and spleen from Israeli airstrikes on November 20 in Rafah that killed his sister Carolin el-Khaldi, 28. He was discharged from the European Hospital in Gaza on Thursday and went to his aunt’s house in Al Qarara, a few miles north of Rafah, near the town of Khan Younis.
Early Friday, thunderous Israeli airstrikes hit nearby homes, blowing out his aunt’s windows and injuring Mr. el-Khaldi again, this time lightly.
“As soon as the ceasefire ended, they raided houses near us,” Mr. el-Khaldi said in a telephone interview on Friday evening. “It was a sound of horror.”
Mr. el-Khaldi said the Israeli army ordered his family to leave Al Qarara and return to Rafah. However, his family refused.
Sameer al-Jarrah, 67, has lived in Al Qarara since the war began on October 7 following Hamas’ devastating attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip.
“I don’t know where to go,” he said. Asked if Rafah was a possibility, he said: “Where people go, I will go too.”
At least 1.8 million residents, or 80 percent of Gaza’s approximately 2.2 million residents, have had to leave their homes since the war. Many fear permanent displacement.
Gheed al-Hessi, 37, moved from the northern Gaza Strip to Rafah in October when the Israeli military ordered a mass evacuation that drove hundreds of thousands south. But calling the south the safest or most humanitarian area in Gaza is a “very big lie,” she said.
Huge explosions late at night and early in the morning often wake them up, leaving them shocked and shaking. She said she ran out of clean water, cooking gas and electricity.
“Rafah is not safe at all,” she said. “Since the war began, many, many buildings and many families have been hit.”
She said a friend called her on Friday and asked if she could go somewhere in Rafah; Ms al-Hessi responded that the situation was dire and many were forced to sleep outside on the pavement or in nylon tents.
The people of Rafah are preoccupied with one question, she added.
“If the Israeli forces threaten us and ask us to evacuate and leave Rafah,” she said, “then where should we go?”