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Tens of thousands of Palestinians crossed back to northern Gaza on Monday morning after Israel opened military checkpoints that had divided the strip for more than a year, ending a displacement many feared could become permanent.
In the dawn light, large crowds of people began the long walk back to their homes – or what remained of them – in columns heavy with emotion and trepidation. More than 200,000 people crossed to the north in the morning, a security official told the AFP news agency.
Many knew they would be returning to nothing more than ruins, but wanted to pitch tents on their own land after long months shifting between crowded camps for displaced people in the south of the strip.
“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 Gaza City.
“Whether the ceasefire succeeds or not, we will never leave Gaza City and the north again, even if Israel would sent a tank for each one of us. No more displacement,” he told the Associated Press.
Some were looking for loved ones who had been unable or unwilling to leave; others hoped only to find bodies they knew were buried under rubble, to give them a dignified burial.
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 an agreement to release the remaining female civilians first, and said the checkpoints to the north would remain closed.
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 added to fears among some in Gaza that they would never be allowed back to the north.
Far-right politicians in Israel who opposed the ceasefire deal and want to restart the war, including the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, have also been vocal advocates of Jewish settlements in Gaza and long-term Israeli rule.
Last-minute talks late into Sunday evening shored up the ceasefire deal, securing 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. Some of them are believed to be dead.
Many Palestinians waited through the night at checkpoints to start their difficult journey as soon as possible on Monday morning. An Israeli military spokesperson announced overnight that the first checkpoint would open to people on foot at 5am, and vehicles would be allowed across after inspection from 9am.
“No sleep. I have everything packed and ready to go with the first light of day,” Ghada, a mother of five, told Reuters on Sunday evening. “At least we are going back home. Now I can say war is over and I hope it will stay calm.”
Families trudged along roads destroyed by fighting, past wastelands of concrete that had once been familiar shops, offices, restaurants and apartment buildings, carrying the few possessions that had survived the war in plastic bags or on makeshift carts.
The crowd included children singing and playing tambourines, an amputee heading slowly north on crutches, and elderly Palestinians in wheelchairs or inching forward supported by younger relatives. Inside Gaza City, cheering crowds waited to greet them.
The first reunions happened within hours, with one tearful embrace between a mother and son captured on video.
Israel had divided Gaza in two early in the war, with a corridor bisecting the strip. Civilians heading south were allowed to cross it, but not to return north, where Israel began its ground operation in response to the cross-border attacks by Hamas on 7 October 2023.
Hundreds of thousands of people fled the area after blanket evacuation orders, and whole swathes of buildings were bombed intensively or destroyed by Israeli military demolitions.
Not everyone was able or willing to leave, and about 400,000 people who stayed on endured even harsher conditions than in the south. Israel maintained a tighter blockade within the broader controls on Gaza that meant only a trickle of food aid entered for months at a time.
Northern Gaza was the first place where serious malnutrition took hold, and where international experts warned a famine was “imminent” during the war.
Many of those eager to return waited through the night for crossings to open, some for the second time after the delay on Sunday. On Sunday night, Israeli forces opened fire on waiting crowds, killing two and injuring nine including a child, health authorities in Gaza said.
Israel warned people to stay away from its forces, which still control a buffer zone along the border and in the Netzarim corridor. A spokesperson also told people to stay away from the sea, and avoid swimming, fishing or other marine activities in the coming days.
On Sunday the new US defence secretary, Pete Hegseth, rang the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, his first call with a foreign official and a signal of Trump’s focus on the relationship.
The US is fully committed to ensuring Israel “has the capacities it needs to defend itself”, Hegseth said, a day after Trump lifted a Biden-era block on shipments of 2,000lb bombs.
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.
