Palestinians and Israelis daring to hope a Gaza deal is close

Sanabel, who lives with her family in their partially destroyed home, told the BBC’s OS programme that everyone in northern Gaza was “feeling happy, cheerful, optimistic to see their best friends, to see their families who were displaced to the south of the Gaza Strip, to start over”.

The teenager said she had called her displaced best friend and discussed “what we would do if the war ended”, adding that she would start by trying to “make up for every moment that deprived me of seeing her”.

“But after I called her, there was a huge bomb in my area. This reminded me of the [last ceasefire and hostage release deal] in November 2023. There were huge bombs and missiles [before it started]. I’m really frightened that this will be repeated.”

“In the last hours of this war, I don’t want to lose one of my family members. I don’t want a ceasefire for a year or five months. I want a ceasefire for a long time – for the rest of our lives.”

Asmaa Tayeh, a young graduate who is sheltering with her family at her grandparents’ house in the western Gaza City neighbourhood of al-Nasr, also said people were once again daring to hope.

“You can never imagine how excited and nervous people are here,” she told the BBC. “Everyone is waiting as if they will only survive after the announcement.”

Asmaa is from Jabalia, Gaza’s largest urban refugee camp, whose residents have been forced to evacuate their homes multiple times by the Israeli military.

When the Israeli military launched a new ground offensive in Jabalia in October, Asmaa’s family was forced to flee once more.

Fierce fighting has raged in Jabalia ever since. In December, Asmaa said her whole area had been “wiped out”.