Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into Gaza's most heavily damaged area on Monday under a fragile ceasefire after Israel opened the north for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas. Massive crowds of Palestinians, some holding babies or pushing wheelchairs, walked with their belongings along a seaside road in a dramatic reversal of the mass exodus from the north that many had feared Israel would make permanent, the AP reports. Palestinians who have been sheltering in squalid tent camps and schools-turned-shelters are eager to return to their homes—even though they are likely damaged or destroyed.
Yasmin Abu Amshah, a mother of three, said she walked nearly 4 miles to reach her home in Gaza City, where she found it damaged but 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. 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 President Trump's suggestion that large numbers of Palestinians be resettled in Egypt and Jordan, an idea those countries have rejected.
In the opening days of the war, Israel ordered the evacuation of the north and sealed it off shortly after ground troops moved in, per the AP. Ismail Abu Matter, a father of four who waited for three days near the crossing point before moving into northern Gaza, 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."
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