Written by Nidal Al-Maghribi
CAIRO (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Palestinians waited at roadblocks to return to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, expressing frustration after Israel accused Hamas of violating the ceasefire agreement and refused to open crossing points.
A day after the second exchange of Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the disruption highlighted the risks to the truce between the militant group and Israel, longtime rivals in a series of Gaza wars.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff will travel to Israel on Wednesday to supervise the ceasefire in Gaza, Israeli Channel 13 reported on Sunday, citing Israeli officials.
In central Gaza, witnesses said queues of people were waiting along the main roads leading north, some in cars and others on foot.
Tamer Al-Borai, a displaced person from Gaza City, said, “A sea of people is waiting for the signal to return to Gaza City and the north.” “This is the deal that was signed, right?”
“Many of these people have no idea if their homes back home are still standing. But they want to leave regardless. They want to set up tents next to the ruins of their homes, and they want to feel at home,” he told Reuters online. Chat application.
Witnesses said on Sunday that many people slept through the night on Salah al-Din Road, the main road that runs from north to south, and on the coastal road leading to the north, waiting for Israeli military sites to pass in the Netzarim Corridor, which runs through the central Gaza Strip.
Officials at Al Awda Hospital said one Palestinian was killed and 15 others were wounded by Israeli gunfire fired by soldiers who apparently tried to prevent people from getting too close along the coastal road. The Israeli army said it was studying the report.
Cars, trucks and rickshaws were packed with mattresses, food items and tents that served as shelters for more than a year for residents of the central and southern areas of the enclave.
Under the agreement reached with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and with the support of the United States, Israel was supposed to allow Palestinians displaced from the north to return to their homes.
But Israel said that Hamas’s failure to hand over a list detailing who among the hostages scheduled to be released were alive or to hand over Erbil Yehud, an Israeli woman who was taken hostage from her kibbutz home during Hamas’ attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, meant it had violated the agreement. .
As a result, checkpoints in central Gaza will not be opened to allow crossings to the north, it said in a statement. Hamas blamed Israel for the delay and accused it of procrastination.
A Palestinian and Israeli official said the mediators were holding extensive talks to resolve the dispute and wait for the release of Jews before the next exchange scheduled for Saturday.
An official in the Islamic Jihad movement in Gaza, which is holding her, said such a settlement had been agreed upon, but the Israeli official said talks were still ongoing despite progress.
“Demolition site”
On Saturday, Trump instructed the US military to release 2,000-pound bombs that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had ordered withheld from being delivered to Israel due to concern about their impact on the civilian population in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump for giving “Israel the tools it needs to defend itself, confront our common enemies, and secure a future of peace and prosperity.”
Trump also called on Egypt and Jordan to receive more Palestinians from Gaza either temporarily or permanently, and said, “We just have to end the whole thing.”
“It is a demolition site in the literal sense of the word. Almost everything has been demolished and people are dying there,” he told reporters after a phone call with Jordanian King Abdullah.
In response, an official with Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that runs the Gaza Strip, echoed Palestinians’ longstanding concerns about being permanently expelled from their homes.
A member of the Hamas political bureau, Bassem Naim, said that the Palestinians “will not accept any offers or solutions, even if they appear to be in good faith under the guise of reconstruction, as announced in US President Trump’s proposals.” Reuters.
Many Palestinians stranded on the roads leading to the north also rejected the solution proposed by Trump.
Majdi Saidam said, “If he believes that he will displace the Palestinian people by force, this is impossible, impossible, impossible. The Palestinian people firmly believe that this land is theirs, and this soil is their soil.”
No matter how much Israel tries to destroy, crush, and show people that it has won, in reality it has not won.”
The Israeli army issued warnings to Palestinians not to approach its positions in Gaza, and said that soldiers fired warning shots on several occasions, but said, “So far, we are not aware of any damage to the suspects as a result of the shooting.”
