Tens of thousands of Palestinians flooded back into northern Gaza on Monday after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year, ending a forced exile from homes and loved ones that many feared could become permanent.
In the dawn light, crowds that had waited by the road overnight began the long walk back to their homes and business – or what remained of them – as soon as the crossing opened.
A column heavy with emotion and trepidation spread up along the coast, parallel to the Mediterranean, into the ruined wasteland of Gaza City, and the north of the strip beyond it. More than 80,000 buildings here have been damaged or destroyed, according to UN data.
Children playing tambourines moved joyfully beside people carrying cats, parrots and other pets, amputees on crutches and elderly people hunched over walking sticks.
Some returnees rolled a vast water drum in a sign they planned a one-way journey into northern Gaza, however difficult the conditions ahead.
At another crossing farther east, a queue of thousands of cars stretched back several kilometres, their drivers waiting for inspection and permission to drive north. After Israeli forces had withdrawn, Egyptian contractors carried out checks for weapons with the help of a US private security firm, witnesses said.
Many of those heading north knew or suspected they would be returning to little more than ruins, but wanted to pitch tents on their own land after long months shifting between crowded displacement camps in the south of the strip. In Gaza City, cheering crowds waited to greet them.
“My heart is beating. I thought I would never come back,” said Osama, a 50-year-old public servant and father of five, as he arrived in the city.
“Whether the ceasefire succeeds or not, we will never leave Gaza City and the north again, even if Israel sends [a] tank for each one of us. No more displacement.”
Some were looking for loved ones who had been unable or unwilling to go when Israel’s military ordered all civilians to leave for the south soon after the start of the war in response to the cross-border attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023.
Social media was filled with videos of joyful reunions – parents, children, friends and siblings back together after 15 months of war. Others hoped only to find bodies they knew were buried under the rubble to give them a dignified burial and a grave to visit and mourn their dead.
The return had been scheduled to start on Sunday, but was delayed for 24 hours by the first major crisis in a fragile ceasefire deal.
When the Israeli hostage Arbel Yehoud was not released on Saturday as expected, Israel accused Hamas of violating the agreement, which called for the release of female civilians before soldiers. Checkpoints to the north would stay closed in response, Israeli officials said.
As the two sides traded accusations, the US president, Donald Trump, speculated about “clearing out” Gaza by moving up to 1.5 million Palestinians to neighbouring Arab countries.
His comments were welcomed by far-right politicians in Israel who opposed the ceasefire deal, including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who this month called for Israel to occupy Gaza and set up a military government.
With the ceasefire hanging in the balance, Trump’s remarks and the response from parts of the Israeli government fed Palestinian fears that they might never be allowed back to the north.
When the checkpoints finally opened, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, described the column of people walking back to their homes as a “crystal clear response to those who still plot to uproot us from our homeland”.
“There is only one direction of travel ahead of the Palestinian people after 100 years of forced displacement and oppression: liberation and return!” he said in a post on social media.
The ceasefire deal was shored up by last-minute talks late into Sunday evening that secured an agreement to release three hostages on Thursday – ahead of the original schedule – and open the routes north on Monday morning.
Israel said Hamas had also provided details on the status of all 26 hostages scheduled for release during this stage of the agreement, announcing on Monday that eight were dead.
Israel warned those crossing to stay away from its forces, which still control a buffer zone along the border and in the Netzarim corridor, set up within weeks of the war.
The corridor divided Gaza in two halves for over a year. Civilians were officially allowed to cross it heading south in what was a difficult and dangerous journey following blanket Israeli evacuation orders that rights groups say amounted to forced displacement.
No Palestinians were allowed to move back into the north. The 400,000 or so people who stayed on endured even harsher conditions than in the south.
Israel maintained a tighter blockade on the north within the broader controls on Gaza that meant only a trickle of food aid entered for months at a time. It was the first place where serious malnutrition took hold, and where international experts warned famine was imminent during the war.
Swathes of buildings were bombed intensively or destroyed by Israeli military demolitions. The scale of damage and deprivation during the war, and the surge of people returning, means aid agencies are now racing to get supplies into the area.
“Clearly needs are going to be immense with that influx of people going north,” said Jonathan Crickx, the head of communications for Unicef Palestine, who is currently in Gaza. “Basic services are missing, for example water is a scarce commodity.
“Families are moving with everything they can carry, but it is not much, because most of them are walking.”
Israel has also agreed an extension of a deadline for its troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon, now set for 18 February. Israel said the Lebanese army had not met its commitment to secure areas south of the Litani River, which Hezbollah forces have to hand over as part of the deal.
On Sunday, Israeli forces killed at least 22 people and injured 124 when they opened fire on civilian protesters trying to return to their home villages, and soldiers who accompanied them.
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