When Syrian grandfather Omar Kafozi returned to his house near Damascus after Bashar al-Assad’s ouster, he saw unfathomable destruction.Now, cushions and plants brighten the wreckage that he is determined to call home again.”As soon as we found out that… the regime was gone and that people were coming back… we sorted our things” and packed the car, said Kafozi, 74, standing in the wreckage of his home in a former rebel bastion near the capital.”I had to come home and stay by any means,” he told AFP. “We came back in the hope that our home would be different to this.”Plastic sheeting covers windows in what remains of the home where he and his family are living with no electricity, running water or even a proper bathroom, in the town of Hammuriyeh.Syria’s war began in 2011 when Assad unleashed a crackdown on democracy protests, prompting soldiers to defect from the army and civilians to take up weapons.When Eastern Ghouta, where Hammuriyeh is located, fell out of Assad’s control, the government imposed a siege and launched a ferocious air and ground assault.Assad’s forces were accused of conducting chemical attacks on rebel areas of Eastern Ghouta.In 2018, tens of thousands of fighters and civilians were bussed to opposition-held northwest Syria under evacuation deals brokered by Assad backer Russia.Among those who left the area at the time were Kafozi and his family.His granddaughter Baraa, now eight and carrying a bright pink school bag, “was an infant in our arms” when they left, he said.Fast-forward to December 2024, Assad was ousted in an offensive spearheaded by Islamist fighters, allowing displaced Syrians to return to their homes.Kafozi said that when Baraa first saw the damage, “she just stared and said, ‘what’s this destroyed house of ours? Why did we come? Let’s go back.'””I told her, this is our home, we have to come back to it,” he said.- No regrets -Until their return to Hammuriyeh, his family sought refuge in the northwest and survived a 2023 earthquake that hit Syria and neighbouring Turkey.Despite the damage to his home, Kafozi said: “I don’t regret coming back.”Outside, children played in the dusty street, while a truck delivered gas bottles and people passed on bicycles.Next door, Kafozi’s nephew Ahmed, 40, has also returned with his wife and four children, but they are staying with relatives because of the damage to their home.From the shell of a bedroom, the day worker looked out at a bleak landscape of buildings crumpled and torn by bombing.”Our hope is that there will be reconstruction in the country,” he said.”I don’t think an individual effort can bear this, it’s too big, the damage in the country is great.”Syria’s 13-year-war has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions more and ravaged the country’s infrastructure and industry.Local official Baibars Zein, 46, said bus transport had been arranged for people displaced from Hammuriyeh.”We’ve taken around 106 families — the total number of families that want to come back is around 2,000,” he said near a mosque with a damaged minaret.- ‘Oppression is gone’ -Among those who returned was Zein’s brother Saria, who left his wife and five children in northwest Syria to try to make their flat inhabitable before they return.”This damage is from the battle that happened and regime bombardment — they bombed us with barrels and missiles,” said Saria, 47, pointing to cracked walls.Rights groups documented the extensive use during the war by Assad’s army of so-called barrel bombs, an improvised explosive dropped from planes.To Saria, the devastation was a grim reminder of a 2015 strike that killed his seven-year-old daughter.His wife narrowly missed being hit by shrapnel that took a chunk out of the wall, he said.Saria hopes to finish basic repairs within a fortnight, but a lot of work will remain.His children “are really excited, they call me and say ‘Dad, we want to come back,'” he said.”We are very very optimistic — the oppression is gone,” he said. “That’s the most important thing.”

Hamas said Tuesday it will release four women hostages in the next swap with Israel under the terms of a fragile truce intended to bring to an end to 15 months of war in Gaza.US President Donald Trump, who claimed credit for the hard-won ceasefire agreement, said he doubted the deal would hold as he took office for a historic second term.Desperately needed humanitarian aid has begun to flow into Gaza as Palestinians displaced by the war headed back to devastated areas of the territory, hopeful the agreement would hold.The ceasefire took effect on Sunday, and saw Israel and Hamas conduct their first exchange of hostages for prisoners.Hamas official Taher al-Nunu told AFP that four Israeli women hostages will be freed on Saturday in exchange for a second group of Palestinian prisoners.In Washington, newly-inaugurated Trump cast doubt on whether the truce would hold.”That’s not our war; it’s their war. But I’m not confident,” he said.Trump had claimed credit for the three-phase ceasefire agreement announced ahead of his return to the White House by Qatar and the United States, following months of fruitless negotiations under his predecessor Joe Biden.Qatar was confident in the ceasefire deal it helped mediate “when it comes to the language of the deal, when it comes to the fact that we hashed out all the major issues on the table”, its foreign minister spokesman said on Tuesday.The new US president has made clear he would support Israel, and in one of his first acts as president, he revoked sanctions on Israeli settlers in the West Bank imposed by the Biden administration over attacks against Palestinians.Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu congratulated Trump on his return, while far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich thanked him for lifting the sanctions.”I look forward to working with you to return the remaining hostages, to destroy Hamas’s military capabilities and end its political rule in Gaza, and to ensure that Gaza never again poses a threat to Israel,” Netanyahu said.”Mr. President, your unwavering and uncompromising support for the State of Israel is a testament to your deep connection to the Jewish people and our historical right to our land,” Smotrich wrote on X.- ‘We will rebuild’ -Displaced Gazan Ghadeer Abdul Rabbo, 30, told AFP she hopes that “with or without Trump”, the ceasefire will hold and world governments will help “maintain this calm, because we are afraid”.If all goes to plan, during the initial, 42-day phase of the truce that began Sunday, a total of 33 hostages are to be returned from Gaza in exchange for around 1,900 Palestinians.Over those six weeks, the parties are meant to negotiate a permanent ceasefire.In Rafah, in southern Gaza, Ismail Madi said that “we have endured immense hardships, but we will stay here. We will rebuild this place.”Three Israeli hostages, all women, were reunited with their families on Sunday after more than 15 months in captivity. Hours later, 90 Palestinian prisoners were released from an Israeli jail.In Israel, there was elation as Emily Damari, Romi Gonen and Doron Steinbrecher returned home and appeared to be in good health.”In Emily’s own words, she is the happiest girl in the world; she has her life back,” Damari’s mother Mandy said on Monday, adding that her daughter was “doing much better than any of us could have expected” even after losing two fingers.The first group of Palestinians released under the deal left Ofer prison in the West Bank early Monday, with jubilant crowds celebrating their arrival in the nearby town of Beitunia.One freed detainee, Abdul Aziz Muhammad Atawneh, described prison as “hell, hell, hell”.Another, Khalida Jarrar of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine — proscribed as a “terrorist” group by Israel and some Western governments — said she had been kept “in solitary confinement for six months”.The relatives of the three Israeli ex-hostages called for the release of the remaining 91 captives seized during Hamas’s October 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war, including 34 the military says are dead.Meirav Leshem Gonen, mother of Romi Gonen, said: “We got our Romi back, but all families deserve the same outcome, both the living and the dead.”There was anxiety in Israel over the next phases of the truce, with columnist Sima Kadmon warning in the Yedioth Ahronoth daily that the coming hostage releases may be more painful than the first.”Some of them will arrive on gurneys and wheelchairs. Others will arrive in coffins. Some will arrive wounded and injured, in dire emotional condition,” she wrote.- ‘Beautiful feeling’ -In southern Gaza, Ammar Barbakh, 35, spent the truce’s first night in a tent on the rubble of his home.”This is the first time I sleep comfortably and I’m not afraid,” he said.”It’s a beautiful feeling, and I hope the ceasefire continues.”The war has devastated much of the Gaza Strip and displaced the vast majority of its population of 2.4 million.More than 900 trucks carrying humanitarian aid entered Gaza on Monday, the United Nations said.The day the deal came into force, 630 trucks entered Gaza.Qatar, which played a key role in negotiating the truce, said that 12.5 million litres of fuel would enter Gaza over the first 10 days.Hamas’s October 7 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza said Sunday that the death toll in the war had reached 46,913, a majority civilians, figures the United Nations has said are reliable.burs-ser/ysm