Tens of thousands of exhausted Palestinians were returning to their ruined homes on Saturday, a day after a ceasefire between Israel and the militant Hamas group took effect in .
Reuters news agency described a huge column of people traveling on foot north along the coastal road overlooking sandy beaches towards Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban area.
Until Friday afternoon, the city was the target of one of biggest offensives of the war.
Gaza civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal said around 200,000 Palestinians had returned to northern Gaza since the ceasefire came into effect.
Gaza residents return to rubble
“Thank God my house is still standing,” Ismail Zayda said in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City. “But the place is destroyed, my neighbors’ houses are destroyed, entire districts have gone.”
Another Palestinian, Mahdi Saqla, said his family had decided to set off north towards Gaza City as soon as they heard the news of the ceasefire.
“There are no homes — they’ve been destroyed,” he said. “But we are happy just to return to where our homes were, even over the rubble. That too is a great joy. For two years, we’ve been suffering, displaced from place to place.”
In southern Khan Younis, once the territory’s second-largest city, hundreds of Palestinians returning to where their homes once stood and have found wrecked buildings, rubble and destruction after Israeli troops withdrew from parts of the city.
“There was nothing left. Just a few clothes, pieces of wood and pots,” displaced resident Fatma Radwan told the Associated Press, adding that people were still trying to retrieve bodies from under the rubble.
Another Khan Younis resident, Ahmed al-Brim, said he was only able to recover timber from the ruins of his home, which he would use for firewood to cook.
“We went to our area. It was exterminated. We don’t know where we will go after that,” he said. “We couldn’t get the furniture, or clothes, or anything, not even winter clothes. Nothing is left.”
Israel pulls back its troops
Palestinians said heavy shelling in parts of Gaza earlier Friday had mostly stopped after the Israeli military’s ceasefire announcement.
Gaza’s civil defense agency confirmed that Israeli troops and armored vehicles were pulling back from forward positions in both Gaza City and Khan Younis.
But Israel warned Palestinians to steer clear of its forces while they were “adjusting operational positions.”
The Hamas-run Interior Ministry said it was sending security forces to areas where the Israeli army pulled out.
Aid deliveries to be stepped up
Meanwhile, the was given the green light by Israel to begin delivering into Gaza starting Sunday, a UN official said on the condition of anonymity.
The aid will include 170,000 metric tons that have already been positioned in neighboring countries such as Jordan and Egypt.
The relief will help address severe , worsened by Israeli curbs on aid access during the war.
In the last few months, the UN and its partners have been able to deliver only 20% of the aid needed in Gaza, according to UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher.
Many questions remain over peace plan
Despite celebrations in Israel and Gaza over the first phase of US President 20-point peace plan coming into effect, many issues remained unresolved, including the disarmament of and a proposed transitional authority for Gaza to be led by Trump with a major role for Tony Blair, a former British prime minister.
The plan calls for Israel to maintain an open-ended military presence inside the , along its border with Israel.
An international force, comprised largely of troops from Arab and Muslim countries, would be responsible for security inside Gaza.
However, Hamas issued a statement late on Friday rejecting what it called any “foreign guardianship,” adding that governance of Gaza was purely an internal Palestinian matter.
Under the ceasefire deal, Hamas will hand over 48 remaining hostages, 20 of whom are thought to be alive. They are due to be released within days.
The two-year Gaza war was triggered by the October 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw 251 people taken hostage.
The fighting has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians and displaced around 90% of the Gaza population of some 2 million, often multiple times.
Edited by Sean Sinico
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