by Nidal Al-Mughrabi
CAIRO (Reuters) Thousands of people at a roadblock trying to return to their homes in northern Gaza on Sunday after Israel accused Hamas of violating ceasefire agreements and refusing to open crossings. The Palestinians were waiting.
The hold-up comes a day after a second exchange of Israeli hostages held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli prisons, and the hold-up marks the latest in a series of Gaza wars between extremist groups and Israel, long-time enemies. He highlighted the risks at stake in the ceasefire.
US President Donald Trump's special envoy for the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, will travel to Israel on Wednesday to oversee the ceasefire in Gaza, Israel's Channel 13 reported on Sunday, citing two Israeli officials.
In central Gaza, columns of people waited along the main road to the north.
“A sea of people is waiting for the signal to return to Gaza City and the north,” said Tamar al-Burai, a displaced Gaza City resident. “This is a signed deal, isn't it?”
“Many of those people don't know if the house they go back to is still standing. But they want to put up a tent next to the rubble of their house, they want to feel at home,” he told Reuters. spoke. Chat app.
On Sunday, witnesses said many people were sleeping overnight on Salahuddin Road. Salahuddin Road is a major thoroughfare that runs north, waiting to pass through Israeli military positions on the north-bound coastal road of the Netzarim Corridor, which runs through the center of the Gaza Strip.
Al-Awda hospital officials said one Palestinian was killed and 15 others were injured in the Israeli fire. The Israeli military said it was investigating the report.
Cars, trucks and rickshaws were overloaded with mattresses, food and tents that had served as shelter for people from the central and southern parts of the enclave for more than a year.
Israel, under an agreement with Egyptian and Qatari intermediaries and supported by the United States, aimed to allow Palestinians to evacuate the north and return to their homes.
However, Israel does not know if Abel Yehud, the Israeli woman taken hostage from her kibbutz home during the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, is alive, or if Abel Yehud is extradited or released. He said he was unable to hand over a detailed list of hostages. , which meant that the agreement was violated.
As a result, checkpoints in central Gaza are not open to allow crossings to the north, the statement said. Hamas accused Israel of delaying and accusing it of stalling.
Mediators were holding intensive talks to resolve the dispute and see Yehud freed ahead of the next scheduled swap on Saturday, Palestinian and Israeli officials said. .
An official of the Gaza militant group Islamic Jihad, which is holding her, said such accommodations had been agreed upon, but Israeli officials said talks were still ongoing, although progress had been made. said.
“Demolition site”
On Saturday, Trump directed the U.S. military to release a 2,000-pound bomb that his predecessor, Joe Biden, ordered withheld from delivery to Israel over concerns about the impact on civilians in Gaza.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “The United States has given Israel the tools it needs to defend itself, confront our common enemy, and secure a future of peace and prosperity.'' I was grateful for that.”
Trump also called on Egypt and Jordan to take on more Palestinians from Gaza, either temporarily or permanently, saying, “We should just clear everything up.”
“It's literally a demolition site, almost everything has been demolished and people are dying there,” he told reporters after a phone call with Jordan's King Abdullah.
In response, officials from Hamas, the Palestinian extremist group that runs Gaza, echoed long-standing Palestinian fears of being permanently evicted from their homes.
The Palestinians “will not accept offers or solutions,” as announced in US President Trump's proposal, even if (such offers) appear to be well-intentioned under the guise of reconstruction. said Basemem Naim, a member of Hamas's political bureau. Reuters.
Many stranded Palestinians on roads leading north also rejected Trump's proposed solution.
“If he thinks he will forcefully displace the Palestinians (then) this is impossible, impossible, impossible. The Palestinian people firmly believe that this land is theirs.
“No matter how much Israel destroyed and broke and tried to show people that it won, it actually didn't win.”
The Israeli military has issued a warning to Palestinians to stay away from their positions in Gaza, saying that soldiers fired several warning shots, but that “so far we have not noticed any harm to the suspects as a result of the gunfire.” “I haven't.”
