“It’s true that the sky has grown quieter, but beneath that calm lie wounded souls and cities reduced to rubble,” Leena Majed Yassin, a 24-year-old archaeology graduate tells The Art Newspaper from her tent in Gaza. “I truly hope that the ceasefire will last, because we are exhausted from having to start our lives from zero every time. But I’m also realistic.”
After six months of relentless Israeli bombardment, and an invasion of Gaza City that displaced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, the latest ceasefire in Gaza is slowly taking hold. In the first phase of the truce on Monday Hamas released all 20 living Israeli hostages held in Gaza, and Israel freed nearly 2,000 Palestinians. Israel still controls over half of Gaza, and large areas remain inaccessible to Palestinians.
Now, even as Israel and Hamas trade accusations of violating the ceasefire, and without a clear timeline for full Israeli withdrawal, Yassin is one of many Palestinians who are beginning to consider the enormous task of rebuilding their lives. Among the wreckage, uncertainty and chaos, a cautious hope is beginning to emerge.
Studying amid destruction
Yassin was in her final year at the Islamic University in Gaza when the war began in October 2023. It halted her studies, destroyed her home, and turned her world upside down.
A year into the war, her course resumed online. She continued studying amid displacement, bombardments, and erratic internet connections that made even simple tasks such as submitting coursework demoralising. Despite the odds, she completed her degree earlier this summer.
Now she longs to return to her old neighbourhood in Gaza’s Al-Karama area with her family, but remains uncertain when that will be possible. The area has been largely destroyed, lacks basic necessities, and remains dangerous due to unexploded ordnance.
“Going back isn’t just visiting a place—it’s an attempt to reclaim a part of my life and my memories that remain trapped among the rubble. Every corner of those streets carries a story, and every stone reminds me of what we’ve lost, and of what we still hope to rebuild one day,” Yassin says.
With her university also severely damaged, Yassin is unsure when she will be able to pursue her dream of studying for a master’s degree in person, and is even considering going abroad to develop her skills and help to protect Gaza’s heritage. “For me, education is not a luxury; it’s a hope I hold on to as I rebuild my life after everything we’ve lost,” she says.
“My plans now are simple, but firm: to learn, to write, and to show the world the real face of Gaza, Gaza that, despite the destruction, still beats with life and with people who plant hope amid the ruins.”
The cost of rebuilding
Elsewhere, in Deir al-Balah, Majed Shala has been living in a tent with his family since the breakdown of the previous ceasefire in March. The artist, father and grandfather is the co-founder of Shababeek, one of Gaza’s key visual art spaces, which was completely destroyed by Israeli forces in 2024.
Like Yassin, Shala has not yet returned to his home, and planning for the future feels daunting. Others who have visited his neighbourhood, in Gaza’s Al-Rimal area, report extensive damage and an uninhabitable environment. “I will go when there is water, electricity, and internet,” he says, though he admits he is apprehensive as winter approaches and he faces another season without proper shelter.
Shala has lost everything: his home, paintings, photographs, workplace, and even his laptop that contained his archives and important documents. “There is no specific plan yet,” he explains. “Emotions are mixed, and the situation is completely different now. The city has been damaged even more than before.”
He admits that, although he sleeps better now that the bombings have stopped, rest is still intermittent. “There’s an unfamiliar kind of fear. I’m trying to convince myself, after two years of war, that it really is over,” he says.
The veteran artist says reconstruction across all fields should be a top priority so that people can return to their homes and regain stability. “People love their neighbourhoods because they are familiar with them, and rebuilding is essential for normal life to resume, for children to go back to school, for hospitals and universities to reopen, and for everyday life to resume,” he says.
Throughout the war Shala continued holding art workshops for children, but he doubts that Shababeek will be rebuilt soon. “It requires a lot of money, and right now, it’s difficult, given that the country needs to recover after all this destruction,” he says.
A plan for heritage
In February 2025, the World Bank Interim Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment report estimated that nearly 55% of heritage sites in Gaza had been damaged or destroyed. The organisation estimates that recovery and reconstruction will cost around $192m, with $48m required for immediate and short-term needs.
Jehad Yasin, the general director of excavations and museums at the Palestinian Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities tells The Art Newspaper that the ministry has already held meetings with the World Bank and other partners in recent weeks to plan heritage reconstruction in Gaza.
“We have made a plan and set priorities. We are ready to start working in Gaza,” Yasin says, noting that all reconstruction coordination runs through the Palestinian Ministry of Planning and International Coperation. He adds that planning began a few weeks ago to enable a quick response once conditions allowed.
The ministry’s first step will be to update its preliminary damage assessment, produced during the last ceasefire with British Council funding, and then begin emergency conservation works. However, Yasin notes that he and his team will first ensure that staff on the ground, many of whom are displaced and have lost everything, including loved ones, are resettled before they can assist in the work.
He confirms that conservation work on the ruins of the fourth-century Monastery of Saint Hilarion, one of the earliest monastic sites in the Middle East, will be among the ministry’s priorities. The site, once a highly complex monastery and one of the largest in the region, is so significant that it was added to Unesco’s List of World Heritage in Danger in July 2024, even as war raged. “We hope this ceasefire is a real one, and not like the previous one,” Yasin says.
Shala echoes this sentiment. “We have all suffered so much,” he says. “Liife should return to normal, but that will require time, great effort, and the help of the entire world so that we can rebuild.”
For the hopeful archaeology graduate, Yassin, rebuilding Gaza goes far beyond physical structures. She says: “When I speak of reconstruction, I don’t mean only stone and cement, I mean rebuilding the human being. Because what has been destroyed inside people may be harder to repair than the walls that have fallen.”
