After two years in an Israeli jail, he returned to find his family dead and home gone

Palestinians coming back to Gaza after being held without charge tell Nedal Hamdouna and Bel Trew how their lives have been destroyed and claim abuse by IDF soldiers

- Nedal Hamdouna and Bel Trew

Nassem waited two years to be reunited with his wife and four children in Gaza, surviving an Israeli prison where he was held without charge and without contact with the outside world.

The 30-year-old Palestinian was arrested by the Israeli military in December 2023 at a checkpoint in Gaza, and was among 1,700 Palestinians from the Strip – all held without charge or trial - released in a ceasefire exchange swap brokered by Donald Trump.

But when he returned home, he found almost his entire family had been wiped out and his house razed to the ground.

“The image of my family has never left my memory. All I could think when I was freed was of being united with them. That’s now a mirage,” he tells The Independent in desperation.

The only family member left alive is his four-year-old daughter: “My wife, my son, my two daughters, my mother-in-law - all killed, all dead. I am a prisoner of grief.”

Amid the jubilant aftermath of Trump’s ceasefire deal, Palestinians in Gaza have been coming to terms with the devastating consequences of two years of unprecedented bombardment by Israel, which has killed more than 67,000 people, according to local officials, and reduced vast areas to rubble.

Many freed detainees, like Nassem, found they had nothing left to return to. Dr Bilal al-Masr, held without charge since December 2024 after his hospital, Kamal Adwan, was besieged and stormed, also came home to a razed neighbourhood and nightmares of alleged abuse.

“I returned free to a shackled homeland without a home, without a hospital, without a life,” he says. “We could hear the screams of detainees at night.”