Deir el-Balah, Gaza Strip – Ayman Harb, father of three children, made it through with his family in the USA Quarters of Gaza City of Shujayea for more than a month at war as Israeli bombs and tanks destroyed the besieged enclave’s largest urban center.

Last week, just before a four-day humanitarian pause went into effect, he decided the family had to flee. One of his sons suffers from cerebral palsy and requires an oxygen tank, and the Israeli soldiers threatened to shoot Harb if he did not throw away the oxygen.

Now, in the center of the Gaza Strip, Harb has only one dream – that the ceasefire will become a real ceasefire that allows him and his family to return home.

On Monday evening, as the four-day ceasefire came to an end, Qatar, which played a central role in brokering talks that enabled the pause in fighting, announced that the pause in the war had been extended for another two days.

For families throughout the Gaza Strip short breathing space also highlights the suffering and humiliation of the 2.3 million people in the enclave who have been under attack since October 7th. Palestinians are calling for a permanent ceasefire and stressing that their priority is to return to their homes, even if they were destroyed in the heavy bombardment over the past month and a half.

The ceasefire, which began Friday, called for the release of Israeli civilian prisoners held by Hamas in exchange for the release of Palestinian women and children detained by Israel.

It quieted the skies over Gaza from the incessant noise of Israeli drones and warplanes. But it has done little to ease the collective trauma of the people of Gaza. According to the United Nations, 1.6 million people were displaced from their homes, with many forced to flee to the south of the Strip. Some families who tried to return to the north during the ceasefire were shot at by Israeli snipers.

Others have been forced to live in what they describe as “shame.”

“I have been living here for a week in a tent on the grounds of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, right next to the ambulances,” said 41-year-old Harb. “There are about 20 of us in a tent, but I had to send my wife and two other children to a relative’s house after the rain soaked our tent this morning.”

“Yes, the bombing has stopped, but we need a ceasefire that will bring us back to our homes,” he added. “Otherwise there is no point. I would rather return to my homeland and die there than stay here in a tent, living in shame and being forced to depend on people for the basic needs of life.”

Harb said his family had had to beg before in their lives. Now they desperately need medicine, food and water.

“We don’t want war. We just want to live in our homes with dignity,” said his 20-year-old cousin Badr.

Imm Shadi al-Taher, a 63-year-old mother of ten, was evicted from her home in Tall az-Zaatar in Gaza City three weeks ago.

She also lived in a tent on the hospital grounds with 25 family members.

“We had our pride and dignity, but look at the state we are in now, this misery and the fact that no one wants to help us or thinks about us,” she said.

She acknowledged that “huge relief” She no longer hears the sounds of drones, fighter jets or artillery fire, her grandchildren are more relaxed, but she can’t bear to be away from her destroyed home.

“I’m willing to live in a tent, but on the ruins of my house, where I don’t have to ask anyone for help,” she said. “I want to go back to bury my siblings who still lie under the rubble of their own destroyed homes.”

According to the Gaza media government, at least 6,800 people are missing and presumed dead under the rubble. This is in addition to the 14,854 Palestinians killed since October 7, most of them women and children.

For Noor Saadeh, a 23-year-old mother of two who was evicted from her home in Gaza City a month ago, the ceasefire is not enough.

“What good is a ceasefire if we can’t return to our homes?” she asked. “My son keeps telling me that he misses his friends at kindergarten. We want our old life back.”

She is worried about the onset of winter as she and her family fled while it was still warm and have no way of returning to their home.

“I had to at least ask people for appropriate clothing for the children,” she said. “We didn’t think we would stay here this long.”