To mark the moment, some people distributed sweets. Some flashed victory signs at passing photographers. A group of small boys led a celebratory chant. “Right or left, north is best,” they sang. “To the north we go!”
There were so many people trying to leave that it became hard to walk through the central city of Deir al Balah, a hub for displaced Gazans. Family after family was taking down tents and packing belongings into plastic bags. Some people heaved gas tanks onto their backs. One man fixed wheels to a plastic box, turning it into a makeshift stroller for his baby.
As they walked, they envisaged the jubilation of being reunited with relatives who had ignored the Israeli evacuation orders and stayed north at the start of the war.
“The first thing I’ll do is hug my mother at her shelter,” Anwar Abu Hindi, 41, a housewife heading north with several children. “Our emotions are all over the place.”
But amid the euphoria, there were some notes of caution and frustration. For a start, the people heading north by car, along the inland highway, encountered long traffic jams; private security contractors were screening northbound vehicles, slowing cars to a crawl.
And many feared what awaited them when they arrived. Northern Gaza has become a wasteland, following intense Israeli airstrikes and the military’s demolition of scores of buildings, many of which had been rigged with traps and explosives by Hamas. In recent months, fierce fighting between Israel and Hamas, which continued until the start of the cease-fire this month, caused particularly widespread damage north of Gaza City.
Many of those returning on Monday did not know if their houses were still standing.
“Thank God we survived this war,” said Shorouq al-Qur, 27, a law graduate returning to Gaza City. But, she said, “no matter where we find shelter, whether here or there, it’s still a life in tents, surrounded by destruction and sadness.”
