Updated January 16, 2025 at 16:52 PM ET
The night following the announced ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas was terrifying for Shaymaa Ahmed.
She's a 21-year-old engineering student displaced in central Gaza and she said the bombardments intensified after the announcement and dozens of people were killed.
"These last moments are very, very frightening," she said.
Ahmed has been sharing her experience of this 15-month war through voice memos and phone calls with NPR's Morning Edition host Leila Fadel.
Back in May one of her last messages was filled with despair. She said she was tired of being displaced over and over again, of losing loved ones, of trying to continue her education from a tent in a crowded camp.
"We're just exhausted of the pain, the suffering and the loss," she said. "We just want it all to stop."
When Fadel checked in on her this Thursday, just days before the first phase of the ceasefire was supposed to be implemented, she said if it actually happens she plans to eventually head back north to her home.
"They're already removing the rubble and emptying up places so that they could welcome us where we could put up tents," Ahmed said of her family who stayed behind. "So really, we're going to prepare so that we can go back to our houses. I mean, our houses are gone. Our entire neighborhood is completely wiped out. But at least go to that place that we long for very dearly, although all of our memories are gone. We're very scared to see that—very scared to see how much we've lost."
She doesn't know exactly how much family they've lost. Her grandmother, two uncles, and many of her cousins were killed.
Over 46,000 people have been killed in Gaza according to health authorities there, but a recent study published in The Lancet medical journal estimates that number is likely undercounted by more than 40%. And, like Ahmed, nearly every person in Gaza is displaced according to the UN.
This latest conflict began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants attacked southern Israel killing nearly 1,200 people and taking more than 240 hostages, according to the Israeli government. Some 100 are still in Gaza and if this deal goes through some will be returned to their families who've been waiting in painful limbo for them to be brought home.
For Ahmed a ceasefire means she can finally grieve for her own family.
"We didn't get the chance to visit their graves," Ahmed said. "We just heard the news of them dying and passing away."
The ceasefire is expected to go into effect on Sunday, according to Qatar's Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani.
So in Gaza, Shaymaa Ahmed is waiting for the day the noise will stop: the drones, the bombings, the yells and chatter of a crowded camp. But she does not expect to return home immediately. She says she will have to carry on with her life in this tent camp until she and her family can make it back to the rubble that was once their home in the north. When the fighting stops she will work for a better future in Gaza despite the utter destruction of the last 15 months.
"Hopefully now the world will realize that Gaza needs to get its rights and we can make it even better than it used to be. That's our hope."
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Leila Fadel: What went through your mind when you heard a ceasefire agreement had been reached?
Shaymaa Ahmed: Well, we still haven't actually come to accept that yet because it hasn't taken effect. Last night was horrible, the bombing did not stop throughout the night. There were 30 martyrs. And we're actually very terrified of the coming days. These last moments are very, very frightening. And to be honest, because of how many negotiations have taken place and failed, we have developed this mechanism to kind of check ourselves, which is basically by stopping to develop any kind of hope.
Fadel: We've been talking for almost 15 months now, and the last message you sent me was in May saying, "We just want a ceasefire." Do you think now is finally the time?
Ahmed: I really hope so. Really, really hope so. It's been very exhausting. You've been with me through the journey. We were in a house, and then we were in that house, resources were getting cut gradually until we lost everything we had. We developed an appreciation for every single thing in our lives. Until right now, we even appreciate walls. It's been suffocating, and really, really hard to deal with all of these hardships, and our life shifted. We're desperate to hear that it's finally, actually over so that we can continue moving on with our lives.
Fadel: How many people, total, have you lost?
Ahmed: Seriously, we've lost count because my family and families in Gaza are very big. I have a lot of cousins. Each of them has like ten kids, and there have been massacres in which an entire building can be bombed, one of which 50 of my family members died– my cousins with all of their kids and their husbands and all of their relatives. I've lost my grandmother, two of my uncles and a lot of my cousins. So up until now, there are over 70 people that are from my close family that have died since the beginning of this war. And we haven't had a chance to visit a single grave until now.
Remember how I told you we were concealing all of these feelings? We feel very scared to actually let them out. And that's why these negotiations and the deal and everything — it's making us very scared of these emotions that we're going to suddenly have to deal with.
Fadel: If this ceasefire really does lead to the end of the war, I mean, we talked about a future. You want to go back to college. You want normalcy again. What's next for you? What is the life that you want? And will you stay in Gaza?
Ahmed: So right now, I am, in fact, admitted into the university that was demolished. They were able to restore their systems online. Now, I'm working with a development team in Gaza. We charge our laptops and our devices with solar panels. And inside of our camp, we have a tent school. The kids that study at the tent school, they are passing their grades and they're going to pass in the next year. They're not going to be stopped when it comes to education.
So these past few months, we have been fighting and this is going to be the case. We're going to fight even harder. We're going to fight stronger. Because then we won't have the bombings. We won't have to worry about losing our loved ones.
Hopefully, hopefully the borders are going to be opened. We're going to have more resources. We're going to have access to everything that will help us make Gaza better, make the quality of life better.
Fadel: Shaymaa, when you say fighting, you're saying fighting to just live a normal life?
Ahmed: Fighting to challenge these circumstances that we're forced to be put under.
Fadel: I'm so relieved that, you know, I think there were so many times where you thought you might not survive the night, and you've survived all of them.
Ahmed: Hopefully, the deal does carry through, and we see an end to this chaos.
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