Tens of thousands of Gazans waited at roadblocks to return to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday. This was after Israel accused Hamas of breaching a ceasefire agreement and refused to open crossing points.
A day after a second exchange of Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the holdup underlined the risks hanging over the truce between the terrorist group and Israel, longtime adversaries in a series of Gaza wars.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, will travel to Israel on Wednesday to oversee the Gaza ceasefire, Israel’s Channel 13 reported on Sunday, citing two Israeli officials.
In central Gaza, columns of people were waiting along the main roads leading north, some in vehicles and some on foot, witnesses said.
“A sea of people is waiting for a signal to move back to Gaza City and the north,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a displaced person from Gaza City. “This is the deal that was signed, isn’t it?”
“Many of those people have no idea whether their houses back home are still standing. But they want to go regardless, they want to put up the tents next to the rubble of their houses, they want to feel at home,” he told Reuters via a chat app.
On Sunday, witnesses said many people had slept overnight on the Salahuddin Road, the main thoroughfare running north to south and on the coastal road leading north, waiting to pass the Israeli military positions in the Netzarim corridor running across the centre of the Gaza Strip.
Al-Awda Hospital officials said one Palestinian was killed and 15 others wounded by Israeli fire, from soldiers apparently trying to prevent people from coming too close along the coastal road. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots at suspects who posed a threat to its troops.
Cars, trucks and rickshaws were overloaded with mattresses, food, and the tents that served as shelters for over a year for those in the central and southern areas of the enclave.
Under the agreement worked out with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the U.S., Israel was meant to allow Palestinians displaced from the north to return to their homes.
But Israel said that Hamas’ failure to hand over a list detailing which of the hostages scheduled for release were alive or to hand over Arbel Yehud, an Israeli woman taken hostage from her kibbutz home during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, meant it had violated the agreement.
As a result, checkpoints in central Gaza would not be opened to allow crossings into the north, it said in a statement. Hamas blamed Israel for the delay and accused it of stalling.
Mediators were holding intensive talks to resolve the dispute and see Yehud freed earlier than the next scheduled swap on Saturday, a Palestinian and an Israeli official said.
An official with the Gaza terrorist group that is holding her, Islamic Jihad, said such an accommodation has been agreed. However, the Israeli official said talks were still ongoing, though progress had been made.
Team Bharatshakti
(With inputs from Reuters)
