Northern Gaza is shattered. The spirit of returning Palestinians is not

Short Url
Updated 28 January 2025
Follow

Northern Gaza is shattered. The spirit of returning Palestinians is not

  • Under the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians were allowed starting Monday to return north
  • Those returning crossed through the Netzarim corridor, a swath of land bisecting the Gaza Strip that Israeli forces turned into a military zone to seal off the north

WADI GAZA, Gaza Strip: They walked for hours loaded with whatever clothes, food and blankets they could carry. Many smiled, some hugged loved ones they hadn’t seen for months. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians filled Gaza’s main coastal road as they streamed back to homes in the north.
The mood was joyous, even though many knew their homes had been destroyed in Israeli offensives against Hamas that leveled large parts of Gaza City and the surrounding north.
The important thing was to go back, they said, to prevent what many had feared would be a permanent expulsion from their homes.
“By returning, we are victorious,” said Rania Miqdad, who was heading back to Gaza City with her family.
Ismail Abu Mattar returned with his wife and four children to the ruins of their Gaza City home, which was partially destroyed by Israeli bombardment early in the war. Like many others whose houses are damaged, he planned to set up a tent nearby and start clearing the rubble. 




Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel's decision to allow thousands of them to go back for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)


“A tent here is better than a tent there,” he said, referring to the vast, squalid tent camps that arose in central and southern Gaza where he and much of the territory’s population have lived for months.
“We had thought we wouldn’t return, like our ancestors,” said Abu Mattar. His grandparents were among the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from what is now Israel during the 1948 war surrounding its creation.
A mass return on foot and by car
Under the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians were allowed starting Monday to return north. UN officials estimated that some 200,000 people made their way back over the course of the day. The scenes of celebration were a sharp contrast to the misery and fear during the war as more than 1 million people fled south on the same routes to escape Israel’s assaults.
Associated Press photos, videos and drone footage showed huge crowds heading north on foot along Gaza’s main coastal road. On one side was the Mediterranean Sea; on the other stretched a landscape of destroyed buildings and bulldozed land left behind by withdrawing Israeli forces. Armed Hamas fighters were visible in some spots, a sign of the militant group’s continued power in Gaza despite Israel’s vows to eliminate it. 




Displaced Palestinians return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel's decision to allow thousands of them to go back for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP)


Families carried bags of belongings and rolled up blankets. On their shoulders, men carried young children — or sacks of food and metal cannisters of cooking gas. Women balanced infants in their arms with satchels of clothes and jugs of water.
A little girl dressed in teddy-bear pajamas held her younger sister’s hand as they trailed their mother. A teenager strapped a pet carrier to his chest with his cat inside.
Others returned in cars and trucks piled high with mattresses and other belongings via a second route, Salah Al-Din Road.
Many were smiling. A child waved a “V-for-victory” sign. People tearfully hugged relatives and friends they’d been separated from for months.
One old woman being pushed in a wheelchair sang a traditional Palestinian song of perseverance dating back to 1948.
“Stand by each other, people of Palestine, stand by each other. Palestine is gone, but it has not bid you a final farewell,” she sang with a smile on her face. Then she added, “Thank God, we’re returning to our homes, after suffering so much ruin and hunger and disease.”
The joy was tempered by war’s cost and future’s uncertainty
Those returning crossed through the Netzarim corridor, a swath of land bisecting the Gaza Strip that Israeli forces turned into a military zone to seal off the north. The north saw some of the most intense Israeli offensives, aimed at eliminating Hamas fighters operating in densely populated areas.
Throughout the war, Israel repeatedly ordered civilians to evacuate the north – for their safety, it said – but barred their return. Under the ceasefire’s terms, Israeli troops pulled back from the main routes to allow returns and are eventually to pull out completely from the corridor.
For some, the joy of return was blemished by the deaths of loved ones. 




Palestinians, who were displaced to the south at Israel's order during the war, make their way back to their homes in northern Gaza, amid a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, in Gaza City, January 27, 2025. (Reuters)


Kamal Hamadah was returning to Gaza City, where his eldest son, his daughter and her children were killed by bombardment early in the war. Their bodies were left buried under rubble in the streets, even as the rest of the family fled south, he said.
Then just over a month ago, another of his sons who fled with him was killed.
“When his mother learned we were going back home, she was struck by a great sadness that she was returning without the boy,” he said.
Returning home, Yasmin Abu Amshah had a happy reunion with her younger sister, Amany, who had stayed in Gaza City throughout the war. “I thought it wouldn’t happen, and we wouldn’t see each other again,” the 34-year-old mother of three said.
Her four-story building was damaged but not destroyed, so she and other members of her extended family will stay there.
Those returning face an uncertain future. If the ceasefire collapses, they could face new Israeli offensives. If peace lasts, it’s not clear when Palestinians will be able to rebuild homes, leaving much of the population in temporary housing.
Ibrahim Hammad, his wife and five children walked five hours back to their neighborhood in Gaza City – knowing their house there had been destroyed by an airstrike in December 2023. His family will stay at his brother’s house until he can clear a space in the ruins of his house to set up a tent.
“We had to return, even to the rubble,” the 48-year-old told the AP. “Here we don’t have a house, but our family is here, and we will help each other.”


Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns

Updated 5 sec ago
Follow

Head of controversial US-backed Gaza aid group resigns

  • Jake Wood says he accepted the role as head of Gaza Humanitarian Foundation "to help alleviate the suffering" in Gaza
  • But he is stepping down because “it had become clear that implementing the organization’s plan was not possible”

WASHINGTON: The head of a controversial US-backed group preparing to move aid into the Gaza Strip announced his abrupt resignation Sunday, adding fresh uncertainty over the effort’s future.
In a statement by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), executive director Jake Wood explained that he felt compelled to leave after determining the organization could not fulfil its mission in a way that adhered to “humanitarian principles.”
The foundation, which has been based in Geneva since February, has vowed to distribute some 300 million meals in its first 90 days of operation.
But the United Nations and traditional aid agencies have already said they will not cooperate with the group, amid accusations it is working with Israel.
The GHF has emerged as international pressure mounts on Israel over the conditions in Gaza, where it has pursued a military onslaught in response to the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas.
A more than two-month total blockade on the territory only began to ease in recent days, as agencies warned of growing starvation risks.
“Two months ago, I was approached about leading GHF’s efforts because of my experience in humanitarian operations” Wood said.
“Like many others around the world, I was horrified and heartbroken at the hunger crisis in Gaza and, as a humanitarian leader, I was compelled to do whatever I could to help alleviate the suffering.”
Wood stressed that he was “proud of the work I oversaw, including developing a pragmatic plan that could feed hungry people, address security concerns about diversion, and complement the work of longstanding NGOs in Gaza.”
But, he said, it had become “clear that it is not possible to implement this plan while also strictly adhering to the humanitarian principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence, which I will not abandon.”
Gaza’s health ministry said Sunday that at least 3,785 people had been killed in the territory since a ceasefire collapsed on March 18, taking the war’s overall toll to 53,939, mostly civilians.
Hamas’s October 2023 attack on Israel that triggered the war resulted in the deaths of 1,218 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
Militants also took 251 hostages, 57 of whom remain in Gaza including 34 the Israeli military says are dead.
Wood called on Israel “to significantly expand the provision of aid into Gaza through all mechanisms” while also urging “all stakeholders to continue to explore innovative new methods for the delivery of aid, without delay, diversion, or discrimination.”

 


Israeli strike kills 20 in Gaza school housing displaced people, health authorities say

Updated 28 sec ago
Follow

Israeli strike kills 20 in Gaza school housing displaced people, health authorities say

  • Medics said the dozens of casualties in the strike on the school, in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, included women and children

GAZA CITY: An Israeli strike on a school housing displaced people in Gaza killed at least 20 people and injured dozens, local authorities told Reuters early on Monday.
Israel stepped up its military operations in the enclave in early May, saying it is seeking to eliminate Hamas' military and governing capabilities and bring back the remaining hostages who were seized in October 2023.
Medics said the dozens of casualties in the strike on the school, in the Daraj neighbourhood of Gaza City, included women and children.
Some of the bodies were badly burned according to images circulating on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.
Despite mounting international pressure that pushed Israel to lift a blockade on aid supplies in the face of warnings of looming famine, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that Israel would control the whole of Gaza.
Israel has taken control of around 77% of the enclave either through its ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardments that keep residents away from their homes, Gaza's media office said.
The Israeli campaign, triggered after Hamas Islamist militants attacked Israeli communities on October 7, 2023, killing about 1,200 people, has devastated Gaza and pushed nearly all of its two million residents from their homes.
The offensive has killed more than 53,000 people, many of them civilians, according to Gaza health authorities.

 


Israel leader meets visiting US homeland security secretary: PM’s office

Updated 26 May 2025
Follow

Israel leader meets visiting US homeland security secretary: PM’s office

  • The visit comes as Israel ramps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met with visiting US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem in Jerusalem on Sunday, his office said.
US and Israeli media reported that Trump had sent Noem to Jerusalem following the killing of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington last week.
Noem was accompanied at her meeting with Netanyahu by US Ambassador Mike Huckabee, Netanyahu’s office said in a brief statement Sunday night.
The office added that during the meeting Noem “expressed her unreserved support for the prime minister and the State of Israel.”
The visit comes as Israel ramps up its offensive in the Gaza Strip in what it says is a renewed effort to destroy Hamas.
Earlier in the evening, Noem and Huckabee had visited the city’s Western Wall, where early celebrations for Monday’s “Jerusalem Day” holiday were taking place.
The holiday commemorates what Israel considers Jerusalem’s reunification under its authority after the city’s eastern sector was captured by its forces in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war.


’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family

Updated 26 May 2025
Follow

’Death is sometimes kinder’: Relatives recount Gaza strike that devastated family

  • The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent’s worst nightmare

GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: Alaa Al-Najjar was tending to wounded children at a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip when the news came through: the home where her own 10 children were staying had been bombed in an Israeli air strike.
The paediatrician, with no means of transport, ran from the Nasser Hospital to the family house in the city of Khan Yunis, a relative told AFP, only to be met with every parent’s worst nightmare.
“When she saw the charred bodies, she started screaming and crying,” said Ali Al-Najjar, the brother of Alaa’s husband.
Nine of her children were killed, their bodies burned beyond recognition, according to relatives.
The tenth, 10-year-old Adam, survived the strike but remains in critical condition, as does his father, Hamdi Al-Najjar, also a doctor, who was also at home when the strike hit.
Both are in intensive care at Nasser Hospital.
When the body of her daughter Nibal was pulled from the rubble, Alaa screamed her name, her brother-in-law recounted.
The following day, under a tent set up near the destroyed home, the well-respected paediatric specialist sat in stunned silence, still in shock.
Around her, women wept as the sounds of explosions echoed across the Palestinian territory, battered by more than a year and a half of war.

The air strike on Friday afternoon was carried out without warning, relatives said.
Asked about the incident, the Israeli military said it had “struck a number of suspects who were identified operating from a structure” near its troops, adding that claims of civilian harm were under review.
“I couldn’t recognize the children in the shrouds,” Alaa’s sister, Sahar Al-Najjar, said through tears. “Their features were gone.”
“It’s a huge loss. Alaa is broken,” said Mohammed, another close family member.
According to medical sources, Hamdi Al-Najjar underwent several operations at the Jordanian field hospital.
Doctors had to remove a large portion of his right lung and gave him 17 blood transfusions.
Adam had one hand amputated and suffers from severe burns across his body.
“I found my brother’s house like a broken biscuit, reduced to ruins, and my loved ones were underneath,” Ali Al-Najjar said, recalling how he dug through the rubble with his bare hands alongside paramedics to recover the children’s bodies.
Now, he dreads the moment his brother regains consciousness.
“I don’t know how to tell him. Should I tell him his children are dead? I buried them in two graves.”
“There is no safe place in Gaza,” he added with a weary sigh. “Death is sometimes kinder than this torture.”
 

 


Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people including a journalist and children

Updated 40 min 12 sec ago
Follow

Israel’s latest strikes in Gaza kill 38 people including a journalist and children

  • Local journalist and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday
  • Latest deaths resulted from Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in central Gaza Strip

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip: Israeli strikes over the past 24 hours killed at least 38 people in Gaza, including children, a local journalist and a senior rescue service official, local health officials said Sunday.

The latest deaths in the Israeli campaign resulted from separate Israeli strikes in Khan Younis in the south, Jabalia in the north and Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip, medics said.
In Jabalia, they said local journalist Hassan Majdi Abu Warda and several family members were killed by an airstrike that hit his house earlier on Sunday.
Another airstrike in Nuseirat killed Ashraf Abu Nar, a senior official in the territory’s civil emergency service, and his wife in their house, medics added.
There was no immediate comment by the Israeli military.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said that Abu Warda’s death raised the number of Palestinian journalists killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023, to 220.
In a separate statement, the media office said Israeli forces were in control of 77 percent of the Gaza Strip, either through ground forces or evacuation orders and bombardment that keeps residents away from their homes.

The armed wing of Hamas and the Islamic Jihad said in separate statements on Sunday that fighters carried out several ambushes and attacks using bombs and anti-tank rockets against Israeli forces operating in several areas across Gaza.
On Friday the Israeli military said it had conducted more strikes in Gaza overnight, hitting 75 targets including weapons storage facilities and rocket launchers.
Further details emerged of the Palestinian doctor who lost nine of her 10 children in an Israeli strike on Friday.
Gaza’s Health Ministry said 3,785 people have been killed since Israel ended a ceasefire in March.

Israel launched an air and ground war in Gaza after Hamas militants’ cross-border attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 people by Israeli tallies with 251 hostages abducted into Gaza. Hamas has yet to release the 58 hostages it still holds.
The conflict has killed more than 53,900 Palestinians, according to Gaza health authorities, and devastated the coastal strip. Aid groups say signs of severe malnutrition are widespread.
Israel also blocked all food, medicine and fuel from entering Gaza for 2 1/2 months before letting a trickle of aid enter last week, after experts’ warnings of famine and pressure from some of Israel’s top allies.
Israel is pursuing a new US-backed plan to control all aid to Gaza, but the American heading the effort unexpectedly resigned Sunday, saying it had become clear that his organization would not be allowed to operate independently.
The United Nations has rejected the plan. UN World Food Program executive director Cindy McCain told CBS she has not seen evidence to support Israel’s claims that Hamas is responsible for the looting of aid trucks. “These people are desperate, and they see a World Food Program truck coming in and they run for it,” she said.
COGAT, the Israeli defense body overseeing aid for Gaza, said 107 trucks of aid entered Sunday. The UN has called the rate far from enough. About 600 trucks a day entered during the ceasefire.
Israel also says it plans to seize full control of Gaza and facilitate what it describes as the voluntary migration of its over 2 million population, a plan rejected by Palestinians and much of the international community.
US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem visited Israel on Sunday and met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.