Palestinians
begin to return to northern Gaza after deal on Israeli civilian hostage reached
Benjamin
Netanyahu confirms agreement reached with Hamas for civilian hostage Arbel
Yehoud to be released on Thursday
Staff and
agencies
Mon 27 Jan
2025 00.41 CET
Displaced
Palestinians have started returning to north Gaza, the territory’s interior
ministry said, after mediator Qatar said an agreement had been reached to
release an Israeli civilian hostage, easing the first major crisis of the
fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas.
Qatar’s
statement early on Monday said Hamas would hand over the civilian hostage,
Arbel Yehoud, along with two other hostages before Friday. And on Monday,
Israeli authorities will allow Palestinians to return to northern Gaza.
The office
of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement said the hostage
release would take place on Thursday and confirmed that Palestinians would be
able to move north on Monday.
“The passage
of displaced Palestinians has begun along the Al-Rashid Road via the western
part of the Netzarim checkpoint towards Gaza City and the northern part” of the
Gaza Strip, an official told the news agency AFP.
Images
posted on social media showed thousands of people streaming along sandy
roadways fringed by the devastation of more than a year of Israeli airstrikes.
Responding
to news that they can begin moving north early on Monday, displaced families
burst into cheers at shelters and tent encampments. “No sleep, I have
everything packed and ready to go with the first light of day,” said Ghada, a
mother of five.
“At least we
are going back home, now I can say war is over and I hope it will stay calm,”
she told Reuters via a chat app.
Hisham Lafi
kneels at the graves; these are mounds of sand marked by sparse desert plants
and small white signs, roughly separated from the other graves by bits of
concrete and breezeblock. The sky is grey behind him with a hint of sunset
behind the cloud.
Under the
ceasefire deal, Israel on Saturday was to begin allowing Palestinians to return
to their homes in northern Gaza. But Israel put that on hold because of Yehoud,
who Israel said should have been released on Saturday. Hamas accused Israel of
violating the agreement.
The release
of Yehoud and two other hostages is in addition to the one already set for next
Saturday, when three hostages should be released.
In addition,
Hamas in a statement said the militant group had handed over a list of required
information about all hostages to be released in the ceasefire’s six-week first
phase. The Israeli prime minister’s office confirmed it had received the list.
Thousands of
Palestinians have gathered at Israeli roadblocks over the past two days,
waiting to move north through the Netzarim corridor bisecting the territory,
while local health officials on Sunday said Israeli forces fired on the crowd,
killing two people and wounding nine.
US President
Donald Trump meanwhile suggested that most of Gaza’s population be at least
temporarily resettled elsewhere, including in Egypt and Jordan, to “just clean
out” the war-ravaged territory. Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinians rejected
that, amid fears that Israel might never allow refugees to return.
Senior Hamas
official Bassem Naim said Palestinians would never accept such a proposal,
“even if seemingly well-intentioned under the guise of reconstruction”. He said
the Palestinians can rebuild Gaza “even better than before” if Israel lifts its
blockade.
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.
Israel’s
military in a statement said it fired warning shots at “several gatherings of
dozens of suspects who were advancing toward the troops and posed a threat to
them”.
Israel has
pulled back from several areas of Gaza under the ceasefire, which came into
effect last Sunday. The military has warned people to stay away from its
forces, which still operate in a buffer zone inside Gaza along the border and
in the Netzarim corridor.
Newly
sworn-in US defense secretary Pete Hegseth spoke with Netanyahu on Sunday in
the Pentagon chief’s first call with a foreign official.
“The
secretary stressed that the United States is fully committed, under President
Trump’s leadership, to ensure that Israel has the capabilities it needs to
defend itself,” the Pentagon said in a statement, which did not specify why
Hegseth spoke with Netanyahu instead of his direct counterpart Israel Katz.
In Lebanon,
Israeli forces also opened fire on civilian protesters trying to reach their
home villages, killing at least 22 people, including at least six women and a
Lebanese army soldier, and injuring 124, according to Lebanese health
officials. Israel accused the Lebanese army of violating key commitments under
the ceasefire deal and the Israeli military warned civilians that returning
home would “expose them to danger”.
Hours later
on Sunday, the White House said that Israel and Lebanon had agreed to extend
the deadline for Israeli troops to depart southern Lebanon until 18 February,
after Israel requested more time to withdraw beyond the 60-day deadline
stipulated in a ceasefire agreement that halted the Israel-Hezbollah war in
late November.
Hamas freed
four female Israeli soldiers on Saturday, and Israel released 200 Palestinian
prisoners, most of whom were serving life sentences after being convicted of
deadly attacks. But Israel said civilian hostage Yehoud should have been
released ahead of the soldiers.
Israel also
accused Hamas of failing to provide details on the conditions of hostages set
to be freed in the remaining five weeks of the ceasefire’s first phase.
Hamas said
it had told mediators – the US, Egypt and Qatar – that Yehoud was alive and
provided guarantees that she would be released.
The
ceasefire is aimed at ending the 15-month war triggered by Hamas’ 7 October
2023 attack and freeing hostages still held in Gaza in return for hundreds of
Palestinian prisoners. About 90 hostages are still in Gaza, and Israeli
authorities believe at least a third, and up to half, have died.
Itzik Horn,
the father of hostages Iair and Eitan Horn, called any resumption of fighting
“a death sentence for the hostages” and criticised government ministers who
want the war to go on.
The
ceasefire’s first phase runs until early March and includes the release of 33
hostages and nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners. The second – and far more
difficult – phase, has yet to be negotiated. Hamas has said it will not release
the remaining hostages without an end to the war, while Israel has threatened
to resume its offensive until Hamas is destroyed.
Hamas-led
militants killed 1,200 people in the 7 October attack, mostly civilians, and
abducted about 250. More than 100 were freed during a weeklong ceasefire in
November 2023. Israeli forces have rescued eight living hostages and recovered
the remains of dozens more, at least three of them mistakenly killed by Israeli
forces. Seven have been freed in the latest ceasefire.
Israel’s
military campaign has killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, more than half of
them women and children, according to Gaza’s health ministry. It does not say
how many of the dead were combatants. The Israeli military says it has killed
more than 17,000 fighters, without providing evidence.
Israeli
bombardment and ground operations have flattened wide swaths of Gaza and
displaced about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people. Many who have
returned home since the ceasefire began have found only mounds of rubble.
With Reuters
and Associated Press
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