Tens of thousands of Palestinians waited, blocked on the road, to return to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday, voicing frustration after Israel accused Hamas of breaching a ceasefire agreement and refused to open crossing points.
A day after a second exchange of Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the holdup underlined the risks hanging over the truce between the militant group and Israel, longtime adversaries in a series of Gaza wars.
In central areas of Gaza, columns of people were waiting along the main roads leading north, some in vehicles and some on foot, witnesses said.
"A sea of people is waiting for a signal to move back to Gaza City and the north, people are fed up and they want to go home," asked Tamer Al-Burai, a displaced person from Gaza City. "This is the deal that was signed, isn't it?"
"Many of those people have no idea whether their houses back home are still standing. But they want to go regardless, they want to put up the tents next to the rubble of their houses, they want to feel home," he told Reuters via a chat app.
On Sunday, witnesses said many people had slept overnight on the Salahuddin Road, the main thoroughfare running north to south and on the coastal road leading north, waiting to go past the Israeli military positions in the Netzarim corridor running across the centre of the Gaza Strip.
Vehicles, trucks and rickshaws were overloaded with mattresses, food, and with the tents that used to shelter them for over a year in the central and southern areas of the enclave and volunteers were distributing water and food.
Under the agreement worked out with Egyptian and Qatari mediators and backed by the United States, Israel was meant to allow Palestinians displaced from the homes in the north to return to their homes.
But Israel said that Hamas' failure to hand over a list detailing which of the hostages scheduled for release is alive or to hand over Arbel Yehud, an Israeli woman taken hostage during the Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023 meant it had violated the agreement.
As a result, checkpoints in the central Gaza Strip would not be opened to allow crossings into the northern Gaza Strip, it said in a statement. Hamas issued a statement accusing Israel of stalling and holding it responsible for the delay.
'DEMOLITION SITE'
On Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump instructed the U.S. military to release 2,000-pound bombs that his predecessor Joe Biden had ordered to be withheld from delivery to Israel over concern about their impact on the civilian population of Gaza.
He also called on Egypt and Jordan to take on more Palestinians from Gaza either temporarily or permanently, and saying "we should just clear out the whole thing".
"It's literally a demolition site, almost everything is demolished and people are dying there," he told reporters after a call with Jordan's King Abdullah.
An official of Hamas, the Palestinian militant group that runs Gaza, reacted with suspicion to the remarks, echoing longstanding Palestinian fears about being driven permanently from their homes.
Palestinians "will not accept any offers or solutions, even if (such offers) appear to have good intentions under the guise of reconstruction, as announced in the proposals of U.S. President Trump," Basem Naim, a member of the Hamas political bureau, told Reuters.
Al-Awda Hospital officials said four people were wounded by Israeli fire, from soldiers apparently trying to prevent people coming too close.
The Israeli military issued warnings to Palestinians not to approach its positions in Gaza and said soldiers had fired warning shots on several occasions but said "as of now, we are unaware of any harm caused to the suspects as a result of the shooting."
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