For the Palestinians, a day on the beach is to escape the war from the war

The air is filled on the beach in Gaza City last Friday afternoon, with happiness from the happiness of young children run inside and outside the water, and the atmosphere is far from destruction and rub in the city, where hundreds seek a temporary postponement of the war.

The beach, about 10 minutes’ walk from the city, travels with colored umbrellas where adults are hidden from the strong afternoon sun and keep looking at young children playing in the near Mediterranean. Many people swim in their clothes instead of swimming-running clothes to their parents at sunken shirts, and wipe the salty water from their faces.

For a short time, war ideas are replaced, pressures to survive with spraying, sand, and a feeling of kinship. But even this small moment of joy can be contaminated with the memories of their missing loved ones and the fear that waves on the horizon that things are still wrong at any moment.

“When I came here, I cried,” Umm Fadi Awad told CBC News Freelance Mohamed El Saify while she sat with many other mothers under an umbrella while their children were playing close.

“In the past few years, you have come and the environment was very nice. Now it misses many things, even our happiness is not the same at the beginning.”

Oud says that she and her family have been explained four or five times over the war, moving between his Rafah and Khan Yunis before they finally went to Gaza City during the first stage of the ceasefire in January.

And that is when Dr. Hanan Balki, the Regional Director of the Eastern Mediterranean, told the World Health Organization (WHO), A journalist for emergency situations The “psychological shock facing the people of Gaza is indescribable.”

She added that the collective shock of the war is “deep and external.”

Therefore, where the Palestinians are looking for any delay they can find, many resort to a day on the beach.

“Everything changes”

Oud, 40, sit with friends around a turbulent table with boilers of hot water and coffee while one child eats a bowl of rice.

She says the beach is a place to rest and find peace in the chaos of their lives.

“This is the only space for our breathing.”

Nearby, Hiba Masseri admits that she was afraid to come to the beach at the beginning, but she finally retreated to her children’s appeals, and the second in which they arrived, she says they took off to play.

“I could not stick to my children,” she explained. “They wanted to reduce stress and pressure.”

Al -Ma’ri, 36, remembers when her family will come to the beach before the war, when the stores she knew well were still open.

“Everything has changed,” she said, looking at the people who gathered on the beach.

“You feel like you are a stranger everywhere you go.”

“All our memories were here.”

At another table, the tall Tghreed keeps tears that remember the special trips that you will take to the same place in the darkness of the night with her 30 -year -old son.

When he returned home from work, he will tell her to come with him to the beach, where they will stay until dawn cracking through the clouds.

“We were sitting in this spot,” she said. “All our memories were here, but now there are no nice memories.”

She is crying as she looks at her phone, full of pictures of her son, who says she was martyred with her husband, daughter, son and children. She wants to get more beach visits with her son, more hugs from her grandchildren, and to eager to normal life in the argument about money with her husband.

These trips to the beach may be an opportunity to conquer their problems, but they are also full of painful memories of loved ones who lost a war that continues to grind.

Hope for a ceasefire, and Trump is appointed to visit the Middle East

On Monday, the Israeli -Israeli Hamas, Edin Alexander, who was resulted in a 19 -month hostility, said that they said it was a gesture of goodwill towards the Trump administration, which could lay the basis for a new ceasefire with Israel.

Alexander, 21, was one of about 250 people who were transferred as a hostage on October 7, 2023, following the Hamas -led attack on southern Israel, which killed about 1,200 people, according to the Israeli number. Gaza’s invasion of Gaza to Gaza performed more than 52,000 people, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.

Alexander’s launch is the first since Israel crashed for an eight -week ceasefire with Hamas in March, which led to fierce strikes on Gaza. Many of the 250 hostages were released in the ceasefire deals earlier, and Israel says 58 hostages are still in captivity, with about 23 years old.

Days before the shooting ended, Israel prevented all aid imports from entering the Palestinian enclave, deepening the humanitarian crisis and provoking warnings about the danger of famine if the siege is not lifted. The government says the steps aim to pressure Hamas to accept the ceasefire on Israel’s conditions.

At the temporary food distribution station in the heart of Gaza City, Abu Abu Halima is waiting for its role to score a bowl of lentil soup. With food in a large deficiency in Gaza, the distributions have become chaotic, as people pushing and pushing. Many leave empty -handed hours after waiting.

The 39 -year -old says she is optimistic that US President Donald Trump will be able to help end the war in Gaza, especially in light of his next trip to the Middle East this week.

Halima said: “We have hope in God and Trump to solve it – we have great hope in it.”

Although Trump is not to visit Israel this time, one time on social media on Monday from Alexander’s release that “we hope this is the first of those recent steps necessary to end this brutal conflict.”

Halima, who holds the soup, said she hoped to stop the ceasefire stability and security for the Gaza people.

“We want safety for our children and food and provide them with education.”

Giving her children an opportunity to breathe

Returning to the beach, Al -Masry fills on her black and plastic chair, from her children’s concern away from the beach in the water, and that things may get worse very quickly.

“I am keen on them,” she said, admitting that she is still afraid that there may be more strikes.

She says that many of her fears and anxiety about the war are always trying to always keep her children safe, but she reminds herself that they need to breathe – even if it is only for a moment.

When the sun begins in this morning almost normal on the beach, this is an indication that the time has come to return to reality. Masry and her children will return to the family home in Gaza City, which was partially destroyed in the war. But she says it’s better than living in a tent.

While her two daughters and her son were jointly, they were swimming, the Masry was full of sight. The youngest crawls to her bosom, and his smile soon turned crying as she wiped on his face.