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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Bethan McKernan in Sderot

‘I can’t believe I have survived’: the day the Gaza ceasefire finally arrived

A Red Cross convoy arrives, surrounded by crowds of Palestinians, to collect Israeli hostages in Gaza City on Sunday.
A Red Cross convoy arrives to collect Israeli hostages in Gaza City on Sunday. Photograph: Abed Hajjar/AP

From a ridge on the western edge of Sderot, the ruins of Gaza loom. Less than a kilometre separates the Israeli town and the outskirts of the Palestinian territory, but after 471 days of war, the other side of the fence from Sderot’s shrubby dunes resembles a dystopian parallel universe.

A few minutes before a long-awaited ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas conflict was supposed to begin at 8.30am local time (0630 GMT) on Sunday, the morning quiet was shattered by an Israeli airstrike on Beit Hanoun, the Gaza town visible from the ridge.

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