Thousands waiting to return to northern Gaza, Trump urges Jordan, Egypt to take Reuters to Palestine

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

CAIRO (Reuters) – Tens of thousands of Palestinians waited, blocked on the road, to return to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday, expressing frustration after Israel accused Hamas of violating a 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 holdout underscored the risks hanging over a truce between the militant group and Israel, longtime adversaries in Gaza’s series of wars.

In central Gaza, lines of people waited along main roads leading north, some in vehicles and some on foot, witnesses said.

“A sea of ​​people is waiting for the signal to move to Gaza City and the North, people are fed up and want to go home,” asked Tamer al-Burai, a displaced person from Gaza City. “This is a signed deal, isn’t it?”

“Many of these people have no idea if their houses are still standing. But they want to go regardless, they want to pitch their tents next to the ruins of their houses, they want to feel at home,” he told Reuters via a chat app.

On Sunday, witnesses said many people slept overnight on Salahuddin Road, a major north-south thoroughfare and on the coastal road leading north, waiting to pass Israeli military positions in the Netzarim Corridor that ran across the center of the Gaza Strip. .

Vehicles, trucks and rickshaws were overloaded with mattresses, food and tents that had sheltered them for more than a year in the central and southern areas of the enclave, while volunteers distributed water and food.

Under an agreement brokered by Egypt and Qatar and backed by the United States, Israel was to allow Palestinians displaced from homes in the north to return to their homes.

But Israel said Hamas’s failure to hand over a list detailing which of the hostages scheduled to be released alive or surrendered Arbel Yehud, the Israeli woman taken hostage during a Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, meant that the agreement was violated.

As a result, checkpoints in the central Gaza Strip would not be opened to allow crossings into the Northern Gaza Strip, the statement said. Hamas issued a statement accusing Israel of delaying and holding Israel responsible for the delay.

‘Demolition Site’

On Saturday, US President Donald Trump directed the US military to release 2,000-kilogram bombs that his predecessor Joe Biden had ordered withheld from being delivered to Israel over concerns about their impact on Gaza’s civilian population.

He also called on Egypt and Jordan to take more Palestinians from Gaza either temporarily or permanently, saying “we should just clean the whole thing up”.

“It’s literally a place of demolition, almost everything has been demolished and people are dying there,” he told reporters after a call with Jordan’s King Abdullah.

An official from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that runs Gaza, reacted with suspicion to the remarks, echoing long-standing Palestinian fears that they would be permanently driven from their homes.

The Palestinians “will not accept any offers or solutions, even if (such offers) are well-intentioned under the guise of reconstruction, as announced in US President Trump’s proposals,” Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political office, told Reuters.

Officials at Al-Awda Hospital said four people were wounded by Israeli fire, from soldiers apparently trying to prevent people from getting closer.

The Israeli military issued warnings to Palestinians not to approach their positions in Gaza and said soldiers had repeatedly fired warning shots, but said: “As of now, we are not aware of any damage to the suspects as a result of the shooting.”