Thousands Return to Devastated Northern Gaza as Israel Lifts Its Closure Under Truce

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip — Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into the most heavily destroyed part of the Gaza Strip on Monday as Israel lifted its closure of the north for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas in accordance with a fragile ceasefire.

Read More: A Bittersweet Gaza Ceasefire

Massive crowds of people walking with their belongings stretched along a main road running next to the coast in a stunning reversal of the mass exodus from the north at the start of the war that many Palestinians had feared Israel would make permanent.

Palestinians who have been sheltering in squalid tent camps and schools-turned-shelters for over a year are eager to return to their homes — even though they have likely been damaged or destroyed.

Yasmin Abu Amshah, a mother of three, said she walked 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) to reach her home in Gaza City, where she found it damaged but still habitable. She also saw her younger sister for the first time in over a year.

“It was a long trip, but a happy one,” she said. “The most important thing is that we returned.”

Many saw their return as an act of steadfastness after Israel’s military campaign, which was launched in response to the Hamas militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. The return was also seen as a repudiation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that large numbers of Palestinians be resettled in Egypt and Jordan.

‘The joy of return’

Ismail Abu Matter, a father of four who waited for three days near the crossing point before moving north with his family, described scenes of jubilation on the other side, with people singing, praying and crying as they were reunited with relatives.

“It’s the joy of return,” said Abu Matter, whose relatives were among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who fled or were driven out of what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation. “We had thought we wouldn’t return, like our ancestors.”

The opening was delayed for two days over a dispute between Hamas and Israel, which said the militant group changed the order of the hostages it released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners. Mediators resolved the dispute overnight.

Hamas said the return was “a victory for our people, and a declaration of failure and defeat for the (Israeli) occupation and transfer plans.”

The ceasefire is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas and securing the release of dozens of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack. Militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in that assault and abducted another 250.

Israel responded with an air and ground war that has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.

In the opening days of the war, Israel ordered the wholescale evacuation of the north and sealed it off shortly after ground troops moved in.

Around a million people fled to the south in October 2023, while hundreds of thousands remained in the north, which had some of the heaviest fighting and the worst destruction of the war. In all, around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced.

Hostage dispute rattled week-old ceasefire

Israel had delayed the opening of the crossing, which was supposed to happen over the weekend, saying it would not allow Palestinians north until a female civilian hostage, Arbel Yehoud, was released. Israel said she should have been released before four young female soldiers, who were freed on Saturday.

It also accused Hamas of failing to provide information on whether the remaining hostages set to be freed in the first phase of the deal are alive or dead. Around 90 hostages are still inside Gaza, and Israel believes around a third of them are dead.

Hamas in turn accused Israel of violating the agreement by not opening the crossing.

The Gulf nation of Qatar, a key mediator with Hamas, announced early Monday that an agreement had been reached to release Yehoud along with two other hostages.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement that the hostage release — which will include female soldier Agam Berger — will take place on Thursday. Another three hostages are expected to be released on Saturday as previously planned.

Hamas also handed over a list of information about the hostages to be released in the ceasefire’s six-week first phase.

Starting at 7 a.m., Palestinians were allowed to cross on foot without inspection via a coastal road passing through part of the so-called Netzarim corridor, a military zone bisecting the territory just south of Gaza City that Israel carved out early in the war. A checkpoint for vehicles opened later on Gaza’s main north-south highway, where traffic was backed up for around 3 kilometers (2 miles).

Under the ceasefire agreement, vehicles are to be inspected for weapons before entering the north, but the mechanism for that was not immediately clear.

Defense Minister Israel Katz said Israel would continue to enforce the ceasefire, and that anyone violating it or threatening Israeli forces “will bear the full cost.”

“We will not allow a return to the reality of Oct. 7,” he wrote on the social media platform X.

A second and more difficult phase awaits

Under the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is to free a total of 33 hostages in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. So far under the truce, the militants have released seven hostages in exchange for more than 300 prisoners, including many serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.

The second — and far more difficult — phase of the agreement has not yet been negotiated. Hamas says it will not release the remaining 60 or so hostages unless Israel ends the war, while Netanyahu says he is still committed to destroying the militant group and ending its nearly 18-year rule over Gaza.

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Magdy reported from Cairo and Krauss from Dubai, United Arab Emirates.