CAIRO: 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 captives held in Gaza for Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, the holdup underlined the risks hanging over the truce between the group and Israel.
US President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, will travel to Israel on Wednesday to oversee the Gaza ceasefire, Israel's Channel 13 reported on Sunday, citing two Israeli officials.
In central 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," said 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 said 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 pass the Israeli military positions in the Netzarim corridor running across the centre of the Gaza Strip.
Al Awda Hospital officials said one Palestinian was killed and 15 others wounded by Israeli fire, from soldiers apparently trying to prevent people coming too close along the coastal road. The Israeli military said it was looking into the report.
Cars, trucks and rickshaws were overloaded with mattresses, food, and the tents that served as shelters for over a year for those in the central and southern areas of the enclave.
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 north to return to their homes.
But Israel said that Hamas' failure to hand over a list detailing who of the captives scheduled for release were alive or to hand over Arbel Yehud, an Israeli woman taken captive from her kibbutz home during the attack on Israel on October 7, 2023 meant it had violated the agreement.
As a result, checkpoints in central Gaza would not be opened to allow crossings into the north, it said in a statement. Hamas issued a statement blaming Israel for the delay and accusing it of stalling.
Mediators were holding intensive talks to resolve the dispute, a Palestinian official close to the talks said, and a solution could be reached later that may see Yehud released earlier than the next scheduled swap on Saturday.
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