GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into Gaza’s most heavily destroyed area on Monday after Israel opened the north for the first time since the early weeks of the war with Hamas, a dramatic reversal of their exodus 15 months ago.
As the fragile ceasefire held into a second week, Israel was informed by Hamas that eight of the hostages to be freed during the deal’s first phase are dead.
Joyous crowds of Palestinians, some holding babies or pushing wheelchairs, walked along a seaside road all day and into the night, carrying bedrolls, bottles of water and other belongings. A few armed, masked Hamas fighters flashed a victory sign. The crowd was watched over by Israeli tanks on a nearby hill.
Palestinians who have been sheltering in squalid tent camps and former schools are eager to return to their homes — even though they are likely damaged or destroyed. Many had feared that Israel would make their displacement permanent.
Yasmin Abu Amshah, a mother of three, said she walked nearly 4 miles to reach her Gaza City home, which was damaged but habitable. She saw her younger sister for the first time in over a year.
“It was a long trip, but a happy one,” she said.
Many saw their return as an act of steadfastness after Israel’s military campaign, launched in response to the Hamas militant group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel. The return was also seen as a repudiation of U.S. President Donald Trump’s suggestion that large numbers of Palestinians be resettled in Egypt and Jordan, which those countries have rejected.
Families of dead hostages are informed
Whether hostages are still alive inside Gaza has been a heartbreaking question for waiting families who have pushed Israel’s government to reach a deal to free them, fearing that time was running out.
Before Monday’s announcement, Israel believed that at least 35 of the about 90 hostages taken in the Oct. 7 attack and still in Gaza were dead.
Government spokesman David Mencer told journalists that a list received overnight from Hamas on the status of the 33 hostages being freed under the ceasefire’s first phase showed eight were dead.
The families have been informed, he said, adding that the information matched what Israeli intelligence had believed.
The ceasefire is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and Hamas and securing the release of dozens of hostages. Militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in the Oct. 7 assault and abducted another 250.
Israel responded with an air and ground war that has killed over 47,000 Palestinians, over half of them women and children, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. It does not say how many of the dead were combatants. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
In all, around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced.
