By Nidal al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) -Thousands of Palestinians waited through roadblocks to return to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday. He expressed frustration after Israel accused Hamas of violating a ceasefire agreement and refusing to open crossing points.
A day after a second exchange of Israeli hostages in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, the holdup underscored the risks hanging over the ceasefire between the militant group and Israel, long-time adversaries in a series of Gaza wars.
Steve Witkoff, President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoy, will travel to Israel on Wednesday to monitor the Gaza ceasefire, Israel Channel 13 reported Sunday, citing two Israeli officials.
In central Gaza, columns of people waited on the main roads leading north, some in vehicles and some on foot, witnesses said.
“A sea of people is waiting for a signal to return to Gaza city,” said Tamer Al-Burai, a displaced person from Gaza city. “This is the deal that was signed, isn’t it?”
“Many of these people have no idea whether their houses at home are still standing. But they still want to go, they want to set up tents next to the rubble of their houses, they want to feel at home,” a chat app.
On Sunday, witnesses said many people slept overnight on Salahuddin Road, the main thoroughfare leading north to south and along the coastal road, awaiting Israeli military positions in the Netzarim corridor that runs through the center of the Gaza Strip.
Officials at Al-Awda Hospital said a Palestinian was killed and 15 others wounded by Israeli fire from soldiers apparently trying to close people too close to the coastal road. The Israeli military said it fired warning shots at suspects who posed a threat to its troops.
Cars, trucks and rickshaws were overloaded with mattresses, food and tents that served as shelter for those in the central and southern areas of the enclave for over a year.
Under the agreement reached with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the US, Israel should allow Palestinians from the north to return to their homes.
However, Israel said that Hamas’s failure to hand over a list identifying the hostages alive or Arbel Yehud, an Israeli woman taken hostage during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, meant that it had breached the agreement.
As a result, checkpoints in central Gaza will not be opened to allow crossings to the north, it said in a statement. Hamas blamed Israel for the delay and accused it of trying to stop the stalling.
Mediators were holding intensive talks to resolve the dispute and free Yehud earlier than the next scheduled swap on Saturday, a Palestinian and an Israeli official said.
An official at the Gazastu militant group that holds Islamic Jihad said such accommodation had been agreed upon, but the Israeli official said talks were not yet complete, although progress had been made.
“Demolition site”
On Saturday, Trump ordered the U.S. military to release 2,000-pound bombs that his predecessor Joe Biden had ordered be repatriated from shipment to Israel because of their impact on Gaza’s civilian population.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu thanked Trump for giving “Israel the tools it needs to defend itself, confront our common enemies and secure a future of peace and prosperity.”
Trump also called on Egypt and Jordan to take over more Palestinians from Gaza either temporarily or permanently, saying “we should just sort the whole thing out.”
“It’s literally a demolition site, almost everything is being demolished and people are dying there,” he told reporters after a call to Jordan’s King Abdullah.
In response, an official from Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that runs Gaza, cited longstanding Palestinian fears of being permanently driven from their homes.
The Palestinians “will not accept any offers or solutions, even if (such offers) appear under the guise of reconstruction, as announced in US President Trump’s proposals,” Reuters.
Many of the stranded Palestinians on the roads leading north also rejected Trump’s proposed solution.
“If he believes that he will (then) forcibly displace the Palestinian people, this is impossible, impossible, impossible. The Palestinian people firmly believe that this land is theirs, this soil is their soil,” Magdy Seidam said.
“No matter how much Israel tries to destroy, break and show people that it has won, in reality it has not won.”
The Israeli military has issued warnings to Palestinians not to approach its positions in Gaza and said soldiers fired warning shots several more times, but said “as of now we are not aware of any harm caused to the suspects as a result of the shooting.” “
