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SvennoJ 1 day ago
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‘My heart is split in two’: The women waiting to return to northern Gaza

Inshirah Darabeh has just one thought on her mind as she prepares to leave the home of her in-laws near Deir el-Balah and travel to her home in Gaza City: finding the body of her daughter, Maram, and giving her a dignified burial.

“I am not going back to find my home. All I want is to find her grave and put her name on a tombstone,” she says. Inshirah, 55, will walk more than 10km (6 miles) through rubble and bomb craters to reach her home. She thinks it will take at least three hours.

Inshirah is overwhelmed with mixed feelings of dread, pain and relief, she says, as she finally leaves the place she has sheltered in for the past year from Israel’s brutal war on Gaza, which has left more than 46,000 Palestinians dead and many thousands more unaccounted for and assumed dead under the rubble. Most of those killed have been women and children.


Israeli military again warns Palestinians against returning to north Gaza

Avichay Adraee, a spokesman for the Israeli military, has issued a statement on X, warning Palestinians seeking to return to north Gaza against approaching the so-called Netzarim Corridor.

He blamed the delay in reopening the area on “Hamas’s breach of the ceasefire agreement”.

Adraee said the corridor will not reopen until the dispute over the release of Israeli captive Arbel Yehud is resolved between mediators and the Israeli authorities.

As we’ve been reporting, Hamas has said the delay in freeing Yehud was a technical issue. Reuters, citing a Hamas official, said the group had informed mediators that Yehud is alive and will be freed next Saturday.


‘We’re the rightful owners of the land’: Palestinians await north Gaza return

Palestinians gathered along al-Rashid Street are hoping to return to northern Gaza even if the area is in ruins from Israeli military attacks over the past 15 months.

“We have been here since last night and we are here, adamant to return, even if we live on the ruins of our home,” one resident camped along the road told Al Jazeera. “We are steadfast simply because we are the rightful owners of the land.”

He explained his ancestors have held the keys to their homes for seven decades, when Israel’s occupation of Palestine began and 750,000 were expelled during the “Nakba”, or catastrophe.

“Ask each and every Palestinian in the diaspora and everywhere, we all have one goal: To hold steadfast to our homeland. The Israeli occupation forces have turned the entire Gaza Strip into scorched land. We have lost our homes, all our possessions, yet we cannot abandon our homeland. It is our homeland.”


Tens of thousands prevented from reaching Gaza’s north

Gaza’s civil defence agency says tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are being blocked from returning to the north of the territory at an Israeli military barrier.

“Tens of thousands of displaced people are waiting near the Netzarim Corridor to return to the northern Gaza Strip,” said agency spokesperson Mahmoud Basal, with Israel refusing to allow them through in a dispute over a captive release.

Huge crowds of Palestinians gathered on a coastal road near the barrier waiting to get through.


A drone view shows Palestinians in central Gaza waiting to be allowed to return to their homes in the north


Israel violating truce by blocking Palestinians’ return to north Gaza

Hamas issued a statement on Israel’s violent prevention of Palestinians returning to the north:

  • We are following up with the mediators on the prevention of the return of the displaced from the south to the north, which represents a violation and breach of the ceasefire agreement.
  • The occupation is stalling under the pretext of the captive Arbel Yehud, even though the movement informed the mediators she is alive and gave all the necessary guarantees for her release.
  • We hold Israel responsible for obstructing the implementation of the agreement, and we are following up with the mediators with full responsibility to reach a solution that leads to the return of the displaced civilians.


Red Crescent says one dead, four injured evacuated near Wadi Gaza Bridge

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says it has so far evacuated one dead and four wounded victims near the Wadi Gaza Bridge, following an attack by Israeli snipers.


‘See how valuable we are? We are worthless’

Israel says it won’t allow the return of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians to northern Gaza until Israeli captive Arbel Yehud is released by Hamas. Her location and status remain unclear.

Crowds of people travelling by foot and carrying their belongings filled the main road leading to a closed Israeli checkpoint. “We have been in agony for a year and a half,” Nadia Qasem, a woman displaced from the north said as she waited. “Since 1am, we have been waiting to return.”

Fadi al-Sinwar, who was also displaced from Gaza City, said, “The fate of more than a million people is linked to one person,” referring to the Israeli abductee.

“See how valuable we are? We are worthless,” he said.

Israeli forces fired on the crowds on three occasions overnight and into Sunday, killing two people and wounding nine, including a child, according to al-Awda Hospital, which received the casualties. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military.

Last edited by SvennoJ - 1 day ago