The truce that “saved people from death” in Gaza has now collapsed, writes Ruwaida Amer in Gaza. During the truce, “it was like we were waiting for death, while praying that it would not come.”

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Many people who have been displaced only learned during the truce about what happened to their houses or apartments, writes Amjad Ayman Yaghi in Gaza. “I saw in a video that my house was destroyed,” a displaced man tells him.

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Sarah Algherbawi, writing from Gaza, describes feeling powerless as a parent when her children ask if their home has been bombed. Writing was a means of releasing stress during past Israeli aggressions but now “I feel speechless,” she says.

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Palestinians are appealing to the Red Cross and Palestinian Civil Defense on social media to rescue and recover their family members trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings, writes Ghada Abed in Gaza. In Rafah, where she is currently seeking shelter, “there is a house with a poignant message written on its wall: ‘Omar and Osama are still under the rubble.’”

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During the temporary and now ended truce, Ghada Abed’s family harvested olives from trees in the courtyard of their bombed home in Gaza. “When we started picking the olives during that fragile ceasefire, we noticed that many of them had fallen to the ground. We tried to collect as many as we could.”

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When Sahar Qeshta cautiously stepped outside her Gaza home on the first day of the truce, after “one of the longest nights I have ever lived,” she found “a city I could hardly recognize, full of destruction and the sounds of people in pain.”

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Citing Egyptian and regional sources, Reuters reported that Israel “informed several Arab states that it wants to carve out a buffer zone on the Palestinian side of Gaza’s border to prevent future attacks as part of proposals for the enclave after war ends.” An anonymous US official said that Washington was opposed to any proposal to reduce the size of Palestinian territory.

Israel published a map of purported “evacuation zones” in the Gaza Strip. Minutes before attacks began, the Israeli military reportedly sent SMS messages to people in multiple areas of Gaza warning that it would “begin a crushing military attack on your area of residence with the aim of eliminating the terrorist organization Hamas.” Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on adequate housing, described Israel’s orders as “a grim game of turkey shoot. A move from indiscriminate killing of civilians to organized killing.” The human rights expert noted that “there is no internet or electricity in southern Gaza on a regular basis. How will the population check SMS messages about coming attacks?”

Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA), said that “we are beyond ‘concerned’ that NO humanitarian aid has been allowed into Gaza today including fuel” after talks to renew a temporary pause in hostilities collapsed and Israeli bombing resumed. The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated that “Israeli occupation forces informed all organizations and entities operating at the Rafah border crossing that the entry of aid trucks from the Egyptian side to the Gaza Strip is prohibited, starting from today until further notice.”

The UN human rights office in Palestine said it was “seriously concerned” over the arrest and detention of more than 3,000 Palestinians across the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, since 7 October, many of them held without charge or trial. Six Palestinians have died in Israeli custody since 7 October, the UN office added – “the highest number of cases reported in such a short time-period in decades.” The UN said that testimonies it has collected “appear consistent with numerous pictures and video clips published in recent weeks on social media by Israeli soldiers, depicting abuse and humiliation of Palestinians.” Palestinian detainees have also reported being “threatened with rape in retaliation for the attacks of 7 October.”

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, said that Israel’s orders for Palestinians in Khan Younis to evacuate to Rafah “risks to push the exhausted Gaza population to the border with Egypt and into deportation to Sinai.” Albanese added that “this may result in the largest forcible transfer of Palestinians in a long history of forcible transfers of Palestinians.” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), similarly warned that an Israeli military assault in southern Gaza may push as many as 1 million refugees into Egypt.

The Palestinian Authority foreign affairs ministry called for “urgent international and American intervention to immediately stop the war” after Israel began bombing Gaza following the collapse of a temporary truce. The ministry said that intense bombardment resulted “in the destruction of entire residential blocks, leading to the martyrdom of over 100 civilians and the injury of hundreds more.”