Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into Gaza’s most heavily destroyed area on Monday under a fragile ceasefire after Israel opened the north for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas. Israel, meanwhile, announced that eight of the hostages to be freed in the weeks ahead are dead.
Massive crowds of Palestinians, some holding babies or pushing wheelchairs, walked with their belongings along a seaside road in a dramatic reversal of the mass exodus from the north that many had feared Israel would make permanent.
Yasmin Abu Amshah, a mother of three, said she walked 6 kilometers (nearly 4 miles) to reach her home in Gaza City, where she found it damaged but habitable. She also 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, which was 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.
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 held 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, and 25 were alive.
The families have been informed, he said.
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 captured in the Oct. 7 attack. Militants killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in that assault and abducted another 250.
Israel responded with an air and ground war that has killed over 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. Israel says it has killed over 17,000 militants, without providing evidence.
Around a million people fled to the south in October 2023, while hundreds of thousands remained in the north, which had some of the heaviest fighting and the worst destruction of the war. In all, around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced. AP
TOPSHOT - This aerial photo shows displaced Gazans walking toward Gaza City on January 27, 2025, after crossing the Netzarim corridor from the southern Gaza Strip. An unending stream of people marched up the coast of Gaza on January 27, carrying their belongings in plastic bags and repurposed flour sacks through the central city of Nuseirat after Israel reopened access to the territory's north. (Photo by AFP) (Photo by -/AFP via Getty Images)