大象传媒

The week after next I鈥檒l be travelling out to Northern Iraq. Along with a couple of colleagues from the Church of England, I鈥檒l be following up a visit eight years ago when Islamic State were wreaking savagery that was unimaginable. We met people in tented displacement camps whose lives had been uprooted, violated or simply destroyed and whose stories were horrifying.

My return to Iraq will be short and I go as an observer; however, for the hostages and tens of thousands of people in Gaza their homecoming will bring immense challenge and will not bring them quick peace or stability.

Released hostages will not emerge from their tunnel prisons and simply get on with life where they left it on 7 October 2023; they will come into a world transformed for ever by the events of that day and its aftermath. They will find a country changed - scarred by extreme violence and violation.

Palestinians will return to 鈥� mostly, nothing. The physical destruction of their lands and homes will not allow a resumption of anything like the life they led before. Many thousands have lost families, homes and communities - abandoned trust and, in many cases, hope. The current ceasefire will not be the trigger for joy and celebration - the losses will be unbearable. And observers like me will have to use our imagination to even begin to work out what the future might hold in the wake of such an appalling experience.

Like Iraqis I met eight years ago, a future is not something you return to, but one that has to be newly built. Violence and violation do not lead easily to vision.

I think it鈥檚 too easy to romanticise return, despite the accounts from history that show how complicated it can be. The exiles of Isaiah or Amos鈥檚 day returned after decades only to find that while they were away, trying to keep the language and memories of 鈥榟ome鈥� alive, 鈥榟ome鈥� was moving on. The home-coming exiles found tension with those who had remained - a stark and emotionally charged clash of expectations, longing and hope. Return was not a romantic resolution, but the beginning of a new set of challenges: how to shape a new society together.

Those going home in Israel and Gaza will find that their world has changed irrevocably. A new life, a new world, has to be built. A rabbi in Jerusalem once said to me: 鈥淪ometimes it seems there is no light at the end of the tunnel. But, it is not because the light is not there - it is because the tunnel is not straight.鈥�

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