DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — The Israeli military renewed its warnings Monday to Palestinians in Gaza not to return to the disputed territory’s north, a day after Gaza hospital officials said five people were killed Crowds of displaced residents tried to reach their homes in the war-torn area.
The northern Gaza Strip was an early target of Israel’s war against Hamas and large parts of it were razed, forcing much of the region’s population to flee south. While around 250,000 people are believed to live in the north, the Israeli military has prevented most of those displaced from returning during the six-month war, declaring the area an active combat zone.
The military has reduced the number of its troops in the Gaza Strip and said it has loosened Hamas’s control over the north, but Israel is still carrying out airstrikes and targeted operations in the region against what it says are reorganizing militants, particularly in Gaza’s main Shifa hospital is in ruins after a two-week crackdown and fighting last month.
Israeli military spokesman Avichay Adraee wrote on
People appeared to heed the new warning, especially after Sunday’s violence.
Hospital authorities in Gaza said five people were killed by Israeli forces as they tried to travel north to their homes. Their bodies were taken to Awda Hospital in Nuseirat Municipal Camp in central Gaza, hospital records show. According to records, another 54 were injured in the incident.
The Israeli military had no immediate comment and the exact circumstances behind the deaths were not immediately clear.
Anaam Mohammad, who was expelled from the northern city of Beit Hanoun and wanted to return, said the military had allowed women and children to cross, but when a group of Palestinians did not give them space, two tanks arrived and opened fire. The emergency services also threw smoke bombs and dispersed the crowd.
“People started running away. People were scared and couldn’t take the risk and enter a dangerous area,” she said.
Ahead of Sunday’s violence, crowds crowded a coastal road and trekked north on foot and in donkey carts. The returnees said they were prompted to make the dangerous journey because they were fed up with the difficult conditions in which they had to live as displaced people.
“We want our houses. We want our life. We want to return, with or without a ceasefire,” said Um Nidhal Khatab, who was expelled from the north.
The northern Gaza Strip and the return of its people are a key sticking point between Israel and Hamas in ongoing negotiations for a ceasefire in exchange for the release of hostages held by the militant group. Israel will try to delay returns to prevent militants from regrouping in the north, while Hamas says it wants a free flow of returnees.
The war has taken a staggering toll on Gaza’s civilian population, with most of the territory’s 2.3 million people displaced by the fighting and living in terrible conditions, with little food and often in tents, with no end to their misery in sight. Large swathes of the urban landscape have been damaged or destroyed, leaving many displaced Palestinians with nowhere to return.
Six months of fighting in Gaza have plunged the tiny Palestinian territory into a humanitarian crisis and pushed more than a million people to the brink of starvation.
There are reports that famine is looming in the hard-hit north, where fighting has made it difficult to reach aid. Israel has opened a new crossing for aid trucks to the north to boost aid deliveries to the besieged enclave. However, the United Nations says the increase in aid deliveries is not being felt in Gaza because of ongoing distribution difficulties.
The UN food agency said on Monday it had managed to deliver fuel and wheat flour to a bakery in remote northern Gaza City for the first time since the war began.
The conflict began on October 7 when Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, in a surprise attack and invasion of southern Israel. Around 250 people were taken hostage by the militants and deported to Gaza. A deal in November freed about 100 hostages and left about 130 in captivity, although Israel says about a quarter of them are dead.
Israeli bombings and ground offensives in Gaza have killed more than 33,700 Palestinians and injured over 76,200, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. The ministry makes no distinction between civilians and combatants in its tally, but says two-thirds of the dead are women and children.
Israel claims to have killed over 12,000 militants during the war, but has provided no evidence to support this claim.
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Magdy reported from Cairo.
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