Over half a million Palestinians return to Gaza City amid massive destruction

Mahmud Bassal, spokesperson for Gaza’s civil defense, said on Saturday that the mass return began immediately after the apparent end of Israel’s assaults on Friday.

A US-mediated ceasefire went into effect at noon on Friday. The ceasefire is the first phase of a new agreement between Israel and Hamas. The Israeli military confirmed it had pulled back to designated positions as part of the deal.

By midday Friday, tanks withdrew from al-Rashid Street on Gaza’s coast so that families displaced by the war could return to Gaza City.

“More than half a million people have returned to Gaza City since yesterday,” Bassal told AFP.

According to the civil defense, 9,500 people remain missing beneath the rubble across Gaza. Rescue teams have already recovered 155 bodies and continue to receive dozens of distress calls each day.

Thousands of returning residents have set up makeshift tents amid the wreckage of their former homes, with little access to shelter or supplies.

Aid deliveries are expected to begin on Sunday, once the Rafah crossing with Egypt reopens under the terms of the ceasefire.

During the genocide, about 700,000 Palestinians had fled Gaza City and the northern areas amid relentless Israeli bombardment and ground raids.

The mayor of Khan Younis said the southern governorate has been 85 percent destroyed, adding that some 400,000 tonnes of rubble must be removed before any reconstruction work can begin.

The United Nations said 170,000 metric tons of food, medicine, and shelter supplies are ready to enter the Strip once crossings reopen.

The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) said they had enough supplies in its warehouses to fill 6,000 trucks and that their teams stand ready to initiate distribution of lifesaving aid in the Strip.

However, Sam Rose, UNRWA’s director of affairs in Gaza, told Middle East Eye that the agency’s work remains constrained by an Israeli-imposed ban on its activities in the occupied territories.

While the current ban does not apply to UNRWA's activities within Gaza, the “no-contact” policy bars their trucks from entering the enclave.

"We've got enough food to feed everyone for between two and three months, and the population is starving. We've got shelter items for hundreds of thousands of people, blankets for over a million people," he added.

Since October 2023, Zionist regime's forces have martyred 67,183 Palestinian people, most of them women and children.

Zionist regime had sealed all border crossings, blocking the entry of humanitarian aid and further deepening Gaza’s already dire humanitarian crisis since March 2, when the regime violated a previous ceasefire agreement with Hamas.