WADI GAZA, Gaza Strip (AP) — They walked for hours loaded with no matter garments, meals and blankets they may lift. Many smiled, some hugged family members they hadn’t noticed for months. Loads of 1000’s of Palestinians stuffed Gaza’s major coastal highway as they streamed again to properties within the north.The temper was once joyous, even if many knew their properties were destroyed in Israeli offensives towards Hamas that leveled huge portions of Gaza Town and the encircling north.The necessary factor was once to return, they stated, to stop what many had feared could be an everlasting expulsion from their properties.
Displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)Learn Extra
Displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)Learn Extra
Hamas warring parties flash the victory signal as displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Hamas warring parties flash the victory signal as displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)Learn Extra
“Through returning, we’re victorious,” stated Rania Miqdad, who was once heading again to Gaza Town together with her circle of relatives.Ismail Abu Mattar returned along with his spouse and 4 youngsters to the ruins in their Gaza Town house, which was once in part destroyed by means of Israeli bombardment early within the warfare. Like many others whose properties are broken, he deliberate to arrange a tent within reach and get started clearing the rubble.
“A tent right here is healthier than a tent there,” he stated, regarding the huge, squalid tent camps that arose in central and southern Gaza the place he and far of the territory’s inhabitants have lived for months.“We had idea we wouldn’t go back, like our ancestors,” stated Abu Mattar. His grandparents have been a few of the masses of 1000’s of Palestinians pushed from what’s now Israel all through the 1948 warfare surrounding its advent.
Displaced Palestinians arrive within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abed Hajjar)
Displaced Palestinians arrive within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abed Hajjar)Learn Extra
Displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)Learn Extra
Displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)
Displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abdel Kareem Hana)Learn Extra
A mass go back on foot and by means of carUnder the ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas, Palestinians have been allowed beginning Monday to go back north. U.N. officers estimated that some 200,000 folks made their long ago over the process the day. The scenes of birthday celebration have been a pointy distinction to the distress and concern all through the warfare as greater than 1 million folks fled south at the identical routes to flee Israel’s attacks.Related Press pictures, movies and drone photos confirmed massive crowds heading north on foot alongside Gaza’s major coastal highway. On one aspect was once the Mediterranean Sea; at the different stretched a panorama of destroyed structures and bulldozed land left at the back of by means of chickening out Israeli forces. Armed Hamas warring parties have been visual in some spots, an indication of the militant workforce’s persevered energy in Gaza regardless of Israel’s vows to do away with it.Households carried luggage of property and rolled up blankets. On their shoulders, males carried babies — or sacks of meals and steel cannisters of cooking fuel. Ladies balanced babies of their hands with satchels of garments and jugs of water. A bit of lady wearing teddy-bear pajamas held her more youthful sister’s hand as they trailed their mom. A young person strapped a puppy provider to his chest along with his cat inside of.Others returned in vehicles and vans piled top with mattresses and different property by the use of a 2d course, Salah al-Din Highway. Many have been smiling. A kid waved a “V-for-victory” signal. Other folks tearfully hugged family and buddies they’d been separated from for months.One previous girl being driven in a wheelchair sang a conventional Palestinian tune of perseverance relationship again to 1948.“Stand by means of every different, folks of Palestine, stand by means of every different. Palestine is long past, nevertheless it has now not bid you a last farewell,” she sang with a grin on her face. Then she added, “Thank God, we’re returning to our houses, after struggling such a lot destroy and starvation and illness.”
An aerial {photograph} taken by means of a drone presentations displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/ Mohammad Abu Samra)
An aerial {photograph} taken by means of a drone presentations displaced Palestinians go back to their properties within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/ Mohammad Abu Samra)Learn Extra
Displaced Palestinians arrive within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Jehad Alshrafi)
Displaced Palestinians arrive within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Jehad Alshrafi)Learn Extra
Displaced Palestinians arrive within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abed Hajjar)
Displaced Palestinians arrive within the northern Gaza Strip, following Israel’s choice to permit 1000’s of them to return for the primary time for the reason that early weeks of the 15-month warfare with Hamas, Monday, Jan. 27, 2025. (AP Photograph/Abed Hajjar)Learn Extra
The enjoyment was once tempered by means of warfare’s value and long term’s uncertaintyThose returning crossed during the Netzarim hall, a swath of land bisecting the Gaza Strip that Israeli forces become an army zone to seal off the north. The north noticed one of the most maximum intense Israeli offensives, aimed toward getting rid of Hamas warring parties working in densely populated spaces.All the way through the warfare, Israel again and again ordered civilians to evacuate the north – for his or her protection, it stated – however barred their go back. Below the ceasefire’s phrases, Israeli troops pulled again from the primary routes to permit returns and are in the end to tug out utterly from the hall.For some, the enjoyment of go back was once blemished by means of the deaths of family members.Kamal Hamadah was once returning to Gaza Town, the place his eldest son, his daughter and her youngsters have been killed by means of bombardment early within the warfare. Their our bodies have been left buried below rubble within the streets, whilst the remainder of the circle of relatives fled south, he stated.Then simply over a month in the past, every other of his sons who fled with him was once killed.“When his mom discovered we have been going again house, she was once struck by means of a really perfect disappointment that she was once returning with out the boy,” he stated. Returning house, Yasmin Abu Amshah had a contented reunion together with her more youthful sister, Amany, who had stayed in Gaza Town all the way through the warfare. “I believed it wouldn’t occur, and we wouldn’t see every different once more,” the 34-year-old mom of 3 stated.Her four-story development was once broken however now not destroyed, so she and different participants of her prolonged circle of relatives will keep there.The ones returning face an unsure long term. If the ceasefire collapses, they may face new Israeli offensives. If peace lasts, it’s now not transparent when Palestinians will be capable to rebuild properties, leaving a lot of the inhabitants in brief housing. Ibrahim Hammad, his spouse and 5 youngsters walked 5 hours again to their group in Gaza Town – figuring out their space there were destroyed by means of an airstrike in December 2023. His circle of relatives will keep at his brother’s space till he can transparent an area within the ruins of his space to arrange a tent.“We had to go back, even to the rubble,” the 48-year-old instructed the AP. “Right here we don’t have a space, however our circle of relatives is right here, and we can lend a hand every different.”___Magdy reported from Cairo. AP video journalist Mohammed Jahjouh in Wadi Gaza contributed to this file.——Practice AP’s warfare protection at