How Gaza feels after six months of ceasefire

0:00Support for this podcast and the following message come from Allianz Travel Insurance. Your flight booked, your lungs suddenly battling bronchitis. Travel insurance helps protect your travel budget so you can book again once you feel better. Learn more at AllianzTravelInsurance.com. Today on State of the World, how Gaza feels after six months of ceasefire.

0:27You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories up close where they're happening. It's Tuesday, April 21st. I'm Greg Dixon. In a few minutes, Israel celebrates its Independence Day during a pause in multiple conflicts. First, we're going to Gaza. More than six months ago, President Trump pressed Israel to end its war in Gaza. As part of the deal, Hamas released its remaining Israeli hostages, and major hostilities ended. But aid groups say far less food and medicine has entered the territory than the two million people living there need.

1:05And reconstruction has yet to begin. And PR's Anas Baba is in Gaza, and he spoke with residents about their lives. And PR's Aya Betraoui brings us his reporting. It's a ceasefire in name only, say Palestinians. Nearly everyone is living in makeshift tents or bombed-out buildings, squeezed into just under half the territory, on a sliver of land along the Mediterranean coast. Israeli troops occupy the rest. My name is Yusuf Naim Yusuf Mugdad. and I have three children and children. They were in the village, in the camp. That's Yusuf Magdad, a 35-year-old father of four, who tells NPR, I live in the street, in a tent.

1:47Like most people in Gaza, his home was destroyed in Israeli bombardment. And although now there's more food in Gaza than in its darkest months of famine before the ceasefire, Israel and the U.S. say there will be no reconstruction in areas of Gaza where Palestinians now live until Hamas disarms. Migdad says he's living in a makeshift tent that hasn't protected his kids from scorching summer heat or freezing winter storms. As for food, he says, the family's surviving on scoops of rice and lentils from soup kitchens. Israel says hundreds of trucks of aid are entering daily and humanitarian needs are being met.

2:27UN agencies say they continue to face restrictions and impediments, and mediators say what's entering Gaza is a fraction of what was agreed upon in the ceasefire.

2:44Mugdad said people in Gaza are like the walking dead. That's how Makarram Mekbal, a 26-year-old woman in Gaza, feels too. She recounts the moment she lost her dad, brother, and husband in an Israeli airstrike early in the war after Hamas' deadly attack on Israel. And then came the night last year she put her son, Ahmed, three, to sleep and cooked instant noodles for her older son, Nabil, five. At 10 p.m., the house was hit. She remembers vividly how she prayed.

3:30That attack killed her boys and left her alone, wounded and disfigured. She's among the more than 10 ,000 people in Gaza the World Health Organization says need medical evacuation. From a bed in a damaged building in Gaza City, Miqbal tells NPR what she really prays for is death. Death, she says, so she doesn't have to live this injustice. This is not life, she says. There's little hope among people in Gaza. More than 700 Palestinians, around 40 % women and children, have been killed during the ceasefire, according to Gaza's health ministry. Israel says its targeted militants are people who've posed a threat to its troops.

4:19That's Naima al-Sawarqi, a father of three who lives in a tent. He points to the sound of an Israeli drone buzzing overhead. He says he walks in the street and doesn't feel safe, that neither his life nor that of his family is guaranteed, even in a ceasefire. Mohamed Abu Khadra, a 22-year-old university student, recently resumed his studies online, but he says he doesn't know what for. He says we used to have dreams and goals, but now we don't see a future.

5:01Abu Khadr says what he really needs is clarity on what comes next for Gaza. Aya Batrawi, NPR News Dubai, with Anas Baba in Gaza City. It is a rare moment of ceasefire in Israel. Not just in Gaza, as we heard, but Israel's conflicts in Iran and Lebanon are also on pause. Israel is celebrating its Independence Day, and the Gaza War is a major theme of the official celebration this year, as NPR's Daniel Estrin reports.

5:33A young soldier says to the glory of the state of Israel as he lights a torch for the country's official Independence Day ceremony and raises high his prosthetic hook. Dual Israeli-U.S. citizen Ari Spitz lost two legs and an arm after an explosion in a booby-trapped building in Gaza. He's a torchlighter this year, one of the country's biggest honors. Argentina's president, Javier Millet, is also there, singing in the ceremony, one of the few Latin American leaders who still supports Israel after the Gaza war. One honoree has stirred controversy, Orthodox Rabbi Avraham Zarbiv, who has served as an Israeli military reservist, demolishing homes in Gaza and Lebanon.

6:28In his speech, he praises military bulldozer operators like him, calling them the vanquishers of the enemy and dismantlers of terror infrastructure. In Gaza, Zarbiv published videos from inside his bulldozer. In this video, he says, we will flatten you and destroy you. He also called for Jewish settlements in Gaza. Other views are too controversial for this patriotic event. A celebrated actor backed out of the ceremony after intense public criticism because she had signed a petition saying Israeli soldiers had committed war crimes in Gaza. War could resume at any moment, so the dress rehearsal was taped for broadcast in case conflict cancels the live ceremony.

7:19This siren went off the morning before Independence Day for Memorial Day. Israelis got out of their cars and stood in silence to remember fallen soldiers and victims of attacks throughout Israel's history.

7:36These ceremonies tell the story of where Israel is today, says Noam Tiroch of Israel's Ben-Gurion University. He researches commemoration. The official story we tell ourselves is a story of an endless war that we must win in order to survive. We had many, many young soldiers dying. Much less attention is given to hope, a future of peace and reconciliation. But there is one ceremony every year that does embrace these values. A joint Israeli-Palestinian ceremony. held yesterday in a secret location in Tel Aviv to avoid hecklers.

8:19It was streamed live to gatherings in Israel and to a group of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank. Speakers were from Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza, all sharing stories of loved ones lost in the war between them. Israeli Ayala Metzger spoke. Her father-in-law was killed in captivity in Gaza.

8:44She said she envisions a world in which both Israeli and Palestinian nations recognize each other's existence, and not, she said, of endless war, death, hate, and revenge. Daniel Estrin, NPR News, Tel Aviv.

9:04That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening. Ever feel like there's always something new that everyone's talking about? Ever feel like you're always out of the loop? Over at Pop Culture Happy Hour, the roundtable pop culture podcast, we've got you. Every episode, we discuss everything. Movies, books, games, and shows, so you'll never feel like you're missing any part of the conversation. Listen to Pop Culture Happy Hour, only from NPR, wherever you get your podcasts.