Palestinians who were displaced from northern Gaza in the early days of Israel’s genocidal war on the Strip began returning to the ruins of their homes on Monday as part of the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas.
Despite the massive destruction in northern Gaza, the Health Ministry estimates around 650,000 Palestinians will return. Later in the day, Gaza’s Media Office said 300,000 Palestinians had returned on Monday.
The Israeli military first ordered the evacuation of north Gaza in October 2023, when it was estimated that the area was home to about 1.1 million people. Most Palestinians forced from the north had been displaced multiple times over the past 15 months and had been living in tent camps in southern and central Gaza.
Many returning to the north will go on living in tents near the rubble of their homes. “We have spent around one year and three months resilient in the Gaza Strip, we did not need anything from the world, we only had God with us,” Fadi, a north Gaza resident who returned to find his home in ruins, told Middle East Eye.
Some Palestinians said the return to the north was a message to President Trump, who recently suggested the idea of “cleaning out” Gaza of its Palestinian residents and sending them to Egypt and Jordan, an idea strongly rejected by the neighboring Arab states.
“Proposals like Trump’s ignore the deep ties and sacrifices that bind people to their homes,” Rashid Khalidi, a Gaza resident, told The New Arab. “These are not just houses. They are symbols of identity and resistance.”
Palestinians were able to return to the north as part of a deal that was brokered by Qatar that will see the release of an Israeli female civilian hostage and two other captives on Thursday. Hamas said the return to the north was a “victory” for Palestinians and a “setback” for Israel.
Starting in October 2024 and in the months leading up to the ceasefire, the Israeli military had significantly escalated in the northern Gaza cities of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, and Jabalia. Palestinian civilians were ordered to leave under the threat of death, whether by military action or starvation. IDF soldiers also demolished nearly every building in the cities, so Palestinians had nowhere to return.
Many Israeli officials and settlers hoped the campaign in north Gaza would lead to ethnic cleansing and the establishment of Jewish settlements, and the return of Palestinians marks a major blow to their plans.
Giora Eiland, a retired IDF general who devised the ethnic cleansing plan for north Gaza, which became known as the “general’s plan,” said allowing Palestinians to return to the territory was a failure of Israel’s war goals. He said Israel was now at the “mercy of Hamas.
Source: Antiwar.com
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