Drones have been a common sight in Gaza for a long time, but they have always been military.

The whine of a drone is enough to trigger fear in many within the enclave.

But now, drones are delivering something different – long, lingering footage of the devastation that has been wreaked on Gaza. And the images are quite staggering.

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Whole city blocks reduced to rubble. Streets destroyed. Towns where the landscape has been wholly redesigned.

Decapitated tower blocks and whole areas turned into black and white photographs, where there is no colour but only a palette of greys – from the dark hues of scorched walls to the lightest grey of the dust that floats through the air.

And everywhere, the indistinct dull grey of rubble – the debris of things that are no longer there.

The joy that met the ceasefire has now changed into degrees of anxiety and shock.

Gaza is full of people who are returning to their homes and hoping for good news. For a lucky few, fortune is kind, but for most, the news is bad.

Umm Firas has been displaced from her home in Khan Younis for the past five months. She returned today to the district she knew so well. And what she found was nothing.

“This morning we returned to our land, to see our homes, the neighbourhoods where we once lived,” she says.

“But we found no trace of any houses, no streets, no neighbourhoods, no trees. Even the crops, even the trees – all of them had been bulldozed. The entire area has been destroyed.

“There used to be more than 1,750 houses in the block where we lived, but now not a single one remains standing. Every neighbourhood is destroyed, every home is destroyed, every school is destroyed, every tree is destroyed. The area is unliveable.

“There’s no infrastructure, no place where we can even set up a tent to sit in. Our area, in downtown Khan Younis used to be densely populated. Our homes were built right next to each other. Now there is literally nowhere to go.

“Where can we go? We can’t even find an empty spot to pitch our tent over the ruins of our own homes. So we are going to have to stay homeless and displaced.”

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It is a story that comes up again and again. One man says that he cannot even reach his house because it is still too near the Israeli military officers stationed in the area.

Another, an older man whose bright pink glasses obscure weary eyes, says there is “nothing left” of his home “so we are leaving it to God”.

“I’m glad we survived and are in good health,” he says, “and now we can return there even if it means we need to eat sand!”

The bulldozers have already started work across the strip, trying to clear roads and allow access. Debris is being piled into huge piles, but this is a tiny sticking plaster on a huge wound.

The more you see of Gaza, the more impossible the task seems of rebuilding this place. The devastation is so utterly overwhelming.

Bodies are being found in the rubble while towns are full of buildings that have been so badly damaged they will have to be pulled down.

Humanitarian aid is needed urgently, but, for the moment, the entry points remain closed. Charities are pleading for access.

It is, of course, better for people to live without war than with it. Peace in Gaza gifts the ability to sleep a little better and worry a little less. But when people do wake up, what they see is an apocalyptic landscape of catastrophic destruction.

The thought of Hamas publicly thanking Donald Trump for his peacemaking efforts would have been impossible to imagine just days ago. 

This, after all, is the president who vowed “all Hell” would be unleashed on Hamas if the hostages weren’t returned.

And yet, in an exclusive interview with Hamas’s senior leader Dr Basem Naim, that’s exactly what happened.

“Without the personal interference of President Trump in this case, I don’t think that it would happen to reach this end, the end of the war,” Dr Naim told me.

“Therefore, yes, we thank President Trump and his personal efforts to interfere and to pressure Israel to make an end of this massacre and slaughtering.”

He was speaking from his office in Doha, where last month he and a group of Hamas leaders, meeting to discuss Trump’s plan, were targeted in an Israeli air strike.

He survived the attack, and in the days that followed, international condemnation seems to have helped build momentum towards the ceasefire deal finally being reached.

Serious pressure

This is the unpredictable, and frankly unbelievable, world of global politics right now: A Hamas leader, who narrowly escaped assassination just weeks ago, telling me he believes Donald Trump is the key man to ensure Israel sticks to the ceasefire agreement.

Let’s be clear: Hamas is under serious pressure.

It is facing calls to step away from governing Gaza and disarming altogether, not just from Israel and the US but regional powers as well.

Gaza needs an enormous amount of aid, investment and reconstruction.

A humanitarian catastrophe which has killed 67,000 Gazans, destroyed or damaged 90% of people’s homes and forced 1.2 million people to become displaced.

The message from major international powers is that their long-term commitment will require a new ruling force in the strip.

Dr Naim told me the organisation was willing to cede political control but rejected calls to lay down their arms until a comprehensive agreement was reached.

“We are ready to hand over government, we are ready to be totally away from any government or government body but when it comes to Hamas as an entity, as a Palestinian liberation movement, I think no one can overcome or exclude Hamas,” he said. “Our weapons are only going to be handed over only to the hands of a Palestinian state and our fighters will be integrated into a Palestinian national army.

“Before that, no one has the right to deny us the right to resist the occupation by all means.”

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The negotiators of Wednesday’s deal in the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheikh may choose to ignore those comments for the time being.

There is, after all, undeniable relief that the fighting has finally stopped, the hostages will be released and 2 million Gazans can sleep safely without the fear of Israeli bombardment.

But for the next phase of this deal to be realised, it will need clear answers as to who runs Gaza?

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Donald Trump and his team believe former British prime minister Sir Tony Blair will have some role to play, something the Hamas official was quick to dismiss.

“To be honest, when I hear the name Tony Blair, I can see this could be Balfour Declaration 2… I think all Palestinians, not only in Hamas, not only in Gaza, have very bad, and very negative image of him.

“And I do not believe that he will be very welcome.”

There will be many who read his comments as proof the organisation has no intention of relinquishing control of Gaza.

Hamas itself may feel some sense of achievement that it was the only representative of the Palestinian political factions involved in the negotiations earlier this week.

But the key question now is, who will be responsible for the governance of Gaza and the daunting security challenges that millions are facing.

It was supposed to be a day of pure joy, with hours spent dancing with the love of his life.

But when Hamas terrorists attacked Nova festival on 7 October 2023, Roei Shalev’s life was tragically changed forever.

The 29-year-old was dancing the night away with his partner, Mapal Adam, and their best friend Hilly Solomon when rocket fire suddenly drowned out the music.

Roei, Mapal and Hilly frantically tried to escape by car, driving away from the festival grounds until they encountered a young woman stumbling into the road, covered in blood.

She warned them that there were Hamas gunmen behind her, so the trio exited their vehicle and ran to nearby trees to hide.

“Bullets whizzed past us, grenades exploded nearby, and terror engulfed us from all directions,” Roei said.

They dived under two abandoned cars – Roei and Mapal under one, Hilly under the other.

But the gunmen caught up with them, shooting the three festivalgoers as they were pinned under the cars.

Roei tried to shield 26-year-old Mapal from the bullets, but she died beneath him while he was shot in the back. Hilly, 26, was also killed instantly.

What followed were “agonising” hours during which Roei lay still, covered in his and his girlfriend’s blood, and played dead.

Even when a second group of gunmen approached and shot at him a second time, hitting him in the back yet again, he did not move.

Seven hours later, the Israeli army found Roei alive.

“That day was the darkest I’ve ever known,” he later said.

The terror continued

A week after his girlfriend and best friend were killed, Roei’s mother Raffaela took her own life because she “couldn’t contain the pain and losses of October 7”, according to her son.

“In just one week, I lost three of the most important women to me in the world,” Roei said.

“In the months that followed, I struggled to cope. Flashbacks and anxiety consumed me, and sleep became a distant memory.”

Roei said therapy and the unwavering support of others gave him the strength to share his story publicly.

“I opened up on social media, laying bare the rawest details of my trauma. The response was overwhelming,” Roei wrote on a fundraising page for Nova festival survivors and their families last year.

“Messages poured in from people who found solace and inspiration in my journey. Their words gave me purpose, a reason to keep fighting.”

He said he was “uncertain of what the future holds”, but knew that he had to “honour the memory of the three extraordinary girls who were taken from us too soon”.

In the two years that followed these tragic events, Roei renamed the family bakery he had been running with his girlfriend to “Mapal Cafe”, in tribute to his “one and only love” and organised events to commemorate Mapal and Hilly.

“Amidst the pain and sorrow, I hold onto one truth: we will dance again,” he said in his fundraising post a year ago.

‘Longing for you is only getting bigger’

On the anniversary of his girlfriend’s death, Roei wrote on Instagram: “Two years have passed since the most terrible day of my life… and of a whole country.

“The longing for you is only getting bigger, the pain does not pass with time. It is always there, everywhere, all the time. I’m full of pain this year, even more than last year.”

In the post, Roei thanked his girlfriend for “moments I won’t forget, pure love and the best relationship I could ask for”.

He also addressed both her and Hilly, saying: “A huge apology that I couldn’t keep you safe on this terrible day, you know I did everything, I did everything to keep you safe, my beloved.

“I preferred to die in agony and for you to survive it.”

On Friday night, three days after the anniversary of the tragic events, Roei posted a note on his Instagram account, saying he “can’t go on anymore”.

“I’ve never felt such deep and burning pain and suffering in my life. It’s eating me up inside,” Roei wrote.

His note raised concern among his family and friends, and a frantic search was launched.

The search ended a few hours later in the tragic discovery of Roei’s body inside a burning car near Poleg Beach in Netanya, Israel. Police have opened an investigation, according to Israeli media.

His friends describe Roei as a warm and devoted member of the Nova community who “gave strength to everyone else while quietly carrying immense pain”, The Times of Israel reports.

Roei’s family confirmed his death in a statement and asked for their privacy to be respected.

The Nova Tribe Community organisation, which represents survivors and families of the victims of the October 7 attack on the music festival, called his death “heartbreaking” and “deeply saddening” in a tribute.

“Roei was a pillar of strength within the community, and his death is an immeasurable loss for us,” the organisation said.

The statement continued: “Sadly, many members of the Nova community are still experiencing traumatic moments daily since October 7.

“We ask everyone to show constant awareness and emotional sensitivity to the mental state of those affected by the October 7 events and to all survivors and bereaved families.”

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SafeHeart, a non-profit organisation providing psychological support for October 7 survivors and their families, said in a statement: “Our hearts are broken alongside Roei’s family, friends, and the entire survivor community.

“This terrible tragedy is a painful reminder that for many survivors, the trauma of October 7 has not ended. It continues to live within them, day by day, moment by moment. The pain does not simply fade with time; in many cases, it grows stronger.”

Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org in the UK.

Alternatively, you can call Mind’s support line on 0300 102 1234, or NHS on 111.