In the early morning hours of 9 October 2025, Palestinians in Gaza were awakened to the news of a ceasefire. After two years of relentless killings and displacement it did not take long for cheers to erupt amongst the rubble.
Gaza: Reactions to the ceasefire agreement
As details on the agreement emerge, and the first steps of the ceasefire are put into practice, our staff on the ground are sending in their reactions via voicenotes and WhatsApp messages.
“I woke my wife and said to her ‘the war is over’”
Words by Mohammed El Aklouk, Information Management Coordinator, NRC in Palestine
This is my voice memo describing how I'm feeling today and my reaction to the recent news.
So let's start from the beginning.
It was two o'clock in the morning, when the messages began arriving to me. A voicenote from my friend said there might be an announcement of ceasefire within a minute. I was half awake. I grabbed my phone and started scrolling through the news, and already Trump had tweeted that an agreement had been reached between Hamas and the Israeli side. For a few seconds, my mind froze. I couldn't process it. As an information management, I needed to validate the information. I checked other sources. It was true. Trump had really posted.
I didn’t know what to do.
I woke my wife and said to her: “the war is over”. She looked at me in a strange way, confused, and she told me: “what are you talking about? It's the middle of the night. There is no news.” I said, “No, but Trump just announced it. The war is over, or at least the first stage and they have an agreement.” She told me to wake up the kids and tell them. So I did immediately.
The children didn't quite understand at first. Each of them grabbed their phones directly to see for themselves. The emotions were mixed, strange. I can't describe them. When they finally saw the news, I told my wife and told her the war is really over.
She asked me, does that mean we can go back to Gaza City? I said, yes, we hope this means we will go back to Gaza City again.
My little boy looked at me with wide eyes, and he said to me, does that mean we will eat meat and the chicken again, my Dad? I smiled and said, yes, my son, soon, soon Inshallah, we will, you will eat chicken and meat. This question shocked me. He jumped with joy. Pure, honest joy.
I sent a message to my brother in our family WhatsApp group. They were still asleep. 15 minutes later, one of them replied, ‘Are you joking? Are you dreaming?’ I said, no, this is real. He asked me, ‘Did you wake up our father?’ I said, ‘no, please let him sleep. I will tell him tomorrow morning’.
Within minutes, emotions swung between disbelief and joy. My wife hugged me and we hugged our children. We said, thank God, we are all safe. The worst chapter of our lives is over. A beautiful one will begin now.
Around 2:15, we began hearing sound from nearby tents: clapping, cheering, whistling, people shouting with joy. All of us ran to the windows. The streets were alive. Normally at this hour, Gaza is silent, but now there was laughter, a lot of songs, some people shouting, “the war is over, the war is over”. And at that moment, messages flooded my phone, ‘congratulations, thank God for your safety. It’s finally over’.
We could not sleep that night, the night of October 9. We stayed awake following the news, analysis and speculations. Everyone asking, will we return to Gaza City? Is it real or not real? But the joy in people's eyes, it was beyond words. Everyone began packing their things and getting ready to leave as soon as the moment of return is announced. We hear the sounds around us, inside the tents people were collecting their luggage. During the night. It was a moment of real happiness, mixed with disbelief, fear and hope.
Happiness that we might finally return to Gaza City, yet uncertainty about what we will find when we go back. But still in that moment, I pray that this would be the last dark night my people would ever have to live through.
So let's start from the beginning.
It was two o'clock in the morning, when the messages began arriving to me. A voicenote from my friend said there might be an announcement of ceasefire within a minute. I was half awake. I grabbed my phone and started scrolling through the news, and already Trump had tweeted that an agreement had been reached between Hamas and the Israeli side. For a few seconds, my mind froze. I couldn't process it. As an information management, I needed to validate the information. I checked other sources. It was true. Trump had really posted.
I didn’t know what to do.
I woke my wife and said to her: “the war is over”. She looked at me in a strange way, confused, and she told me: “what are you talking about? It's the middle of the night. There is no news.” I said, “No, but Trump just announced it. The war is over, or at least the first stage and they have an agreement.” She told me to wake up the kids and tell them. So I did immediately.
The children didn't quite understand at first. Each of them grabbed their phones directly to see for themselves. The emotions were mixed, strange. I can't describe them. When they finally saw the news, I told my wife and told her the war is really over.
She asked me, does that mean we can go back to Gaza City? I said, yes, we hope this means we will go back to Gaza City again.
My little boy looked at me with wide eyes, and he said to me, does that mean we will eat meat and the chicken again, my Dad? I smiled and said, yes, my son, soon, soon Inshallah, we will, you will eat chicken and meat. This question shocked me. He jumped with joy. Pure, honest joy.
I sent a message to my brother in our family WhatsApp group. They were still asleep. 15 minutes later, one of them replied, ‘Are you joking? Are you dreaming?’ I said, no, this is real. He asked me, ‘Did you wake up our father?’ I said, ‘no, please let him sleep. I will tell him tomorrow morning’.
Within minutes, emotions swung between disbelief and joy. My wife hugged me and we hugged our children. We said, thank God, we are all safe. The worst chapter of our lives is over. A beautiful one will begin now.
Around 2:15, we began hearing sound from nearby tents: clapping, cheering, whistling, people shouting with joy. All of us ran to the windows. The streets were alive. Normally at this hour, Gaza is silent, but now there was laughter, a lot of songs, some people shouting, “the war is over, the war is over”. And at that moment, messages flooded my phone, ‘congratulations, thank God for your safety. It’s finally over’.
We could not sleep that night, the night of October 9. We stayed awake following the news, analysis and speculations. Everyone asking, will we return to Gaza City? Is it real or not real? But the joy in people's eyes, it was beyond words. Everyone began packing their things and getting ready to leave as soon as the moment of return is announced. We hear the sounds around us, inside the tents people were collecting their luggage. During the night. It was a moment of real happiness, mixed with disbelief, fear and hope.
Happiness that we might finally return to Gaza City, yet uncertainty about what we will find when we go back. But still in that moment, I pray that this would be the last dark night my people would ever have to live through.
“It seems that this nightmare will come to an end”
Words by Salma Altaweel, Northern Gaza Office Manager, NRC in Palestine. Extracted from an interview conducted on CNN on 9 October
On the ground, people's feelings are mixed. It's a combination of joy and disbelief because... you can imagine what it means to endure two full years of this indescribable suffering. And we thought it would never end. And finally, this. It seems that this nightmare will come to an end. And we can start healing from what we have been through.
Everyone here is exhausted and drained beyond measure. And we are now seeing relief and happiness that the war is ending. But we know, it's not the end. The road ahead is long, and the country is completely devastated and will require massive efforts to rebuild and create favourable conditions for the people here in Gaza.
For the first steps, I think all people want is to go back to their areas and neighbourhoods, their homes, even though they are, most of them at least, destroyed. And I'm talking specifically for the people that were forced to flee their homes. And they are now living in very bad conditions. They are living in the streets without even a tent to cover them from the surrounding issues and the weather. Everything.
There is so much rubble. 95 something per cent of Gaza is destroyed. I know some casualties of war are still underneath that rubble, so there's that emotional toll that’s on people inside the enclave too.
Gaza City is under siege and so people do not have enough food. The basic life conditions are very hard and tough, especially in Gaza City.
But once the ceasefire starts and they start the implementation of the stages of this agreement, and we hope that they will not break any of those, things will start to change. But we need the donor countries. They must commit additional funding to allow us to expand and sustain our efforts, and to start the cleaning of this rubble to allow people to feel settled and stay in their areas. And then start the reconstruction of Gaza.
Everyone here is exhausted and drained beyond measure. And we are now seeing relief and happiness that the war is ending. But we know, it's not the end. The road ahead is long, and the country is completely devastated and will require massive efforts to rebuild and create favourable conditions for the people here in Gaza.
For the first steps, I think all people want is to go back to their areas and neighbourhoods, their homes, even though they are, most of them at least, destroyed. And I'm talking specifically for the people that were forced to flee their homes. And they are now living in very bad conditions. They are living in the streets without even a tent to cover them from the surrounding issues and the weather. Everything.
There is so much rubble. 95 something per cent of Gaza is destroyed. I know some casualties of war are still underneath that rubble, so there's that emotional toll that’s on people inside the enclave too.
Gaza City is under siege and so people do not have enough food. The basic life conditions are very hard and tough, especially in Gaza City.
But once the ceasefire starts and they start the implementation of the stages of this agreement, and we hope that they will not break any of those, things will start to change. But we need the donor countries. They must commit additional funding to allow us to expand and sustain our efforts, and to start the cleaning of this rubble to allow people to feel settled and stay in their areas. And then start the reconstruction of Gaza.