Gaza’s Victory:  Displaced Palestinians Return to Devastated North

By Staff, Agencies

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have begun returning to the northern part of the war-wracked Gaza Strip after a deal was reached between Hamas and “Israel” over exchange of “Israeli” captives and Palestinian detainees.

The displaced Palestinians had been stranded behind “Israeli” military barriers despite the ceasefire.

It was announced that Hamas has agreed to release female “Israeli” captive Arbel Yehud and two others by Friday and provided information on the conditions of those set to be freed in the first phase of the ceasefire deal.

“Israel” approved of the ceasefire after falling short of realizing any of its wartime objectives, including enabling the return of the captives, “eliminating” the Gazan resistance, and causing forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population to neighboring Egypt.

On Sunday, Hamas lambasted the entity for delaying the implementation of the ceasefire deal after “Israeli” forces killed and injured the Palestinians trying to return to the north.

Earlier, however, “Israel” said Palestinians could begin returning to the north on Monday after Gaza’s Islamic Jihad resistance movement confirmed that “Israeli” captive Arbel Yehud would be released before the next scheduled captive swap.

Meanwhile, the Islamic Jihad Movement issued a statement, describing the return of the displaced people as “a victory” for Palestinians and a defeat for the “Israelis”.

It said the scenes of the return of Palestinians to the areas from which they had been displaced, confirmed their connection to their land and once again proved “the failure of the occupation to achieve the aggressive goals of displacing people and breaking their steadfast will.”

The Islamic Jihad also described the return as a response to all those, who used to harbor the dream of enabling forced exodus of Palestinians.

“In an epic scene, hundreds of thousands of our displaced people are returning to northern Gaza, an area, which had been turned into a heap of rubble as a result of Zionists’ atrocities,” the group said.

It also described the “Israeli” conditioning the return of the displaced to Yehud’s release as an international move on the part of “Tel Aviv” to “destroy our people’s happiness in Gaza.”

For his part, the “Israeli” former minister of so-called “national security,” Itamar Ben-Gvir, however, decried the return as a victory for Hamas.

“The opening of the ‘Netzarim’ highway this morning and the entry of tens of thousands of Gazans into the northern Gaza Strip are images of Hamas’ victory and another humiliating part of the reckless deal. This is not what ‘complete victory’ looks like – this is what complete surrender looks like,” he wrote on X, former Twitter.

The “Israeli” soldiers did not fight and give their lives in the Gaza Strip to make these photos possible, he said, adding, “We must return to war – and destroy!”

Ben-Gvir resigned from his post earlier this month in protest at the ceasefire deal.