Our battle for survival amid the ruins of Gaza: what it takes to rebuild war-torn lives

When news of a ceasefire in Gaza reached student Dalia Orouq, she felt a sense of shock that she'd managed to live through two years of war.

- Aseel Mousa & Ruth Michaelson

As she and her family hugged - while neighbours leaned out of their windows in the darkness of Deir al-Balah, in central Gaza, to congratulate one another - Orouq could barely believe what was happening.

"It was a mix of happiness and disbelief, of joy and cautious hope. We kept refreshing the news to make sure it was true," she said.

She was overjoyed, but the trauma and pain of the past two years of war consumed her.

"I couldn't believe that somehow I am still alive," she said.

Orouq was supposed to be in university by now - instead she is still finishing high school using any internet signal that she can find to study. For the past two years, her every waking moment has been filled with the looming prospect of having to flee again: she was displaced 13 times in those two years. The war, she said, has been an experience of constant humiliation. Her bags have been packed constantly.

"I thought about what it would be like to be killed and left under the rubble. I thought about my younger siblings, who were starving, and how helpless I was - because even when we had some money, there was no food, nothing available."