Tuesday, February 11

Over 400,000 Palestinians Return to Gaza City

Palestinians return to Gaza city despite 15-month Israeli genocide vowing they will never abandon their homeland.

Agencies

Gaza Strip, Palestine— By Monday evening it has been estimated that over 400,000 Palestinians have returned to Gaza city in the northern part of Gaza Strip after 15 months of being displaced by an Israeli genocide that has over 70,000 people and destroyed over 85 per cent of all the buildings in the enclave. The Associated Press described their return as “a dramatic reversal of their exodus 15 months ago.”

“Joyous crowds of Palestinians, some holding babies or pushing wheelchairs, walked along a seaside road all day and into the night, carrying bedrolls, bottles of water and other belongings. Armed and masked Hamas fighters flashed a victory sign. The crowd was watched over by Israeli tanks on a nearby hill,” AP said.

In all, around 90% of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been displaced, and they face new health risks as they return, said the AP.

“Children playing tambourines moved joyfully beside people carrying cats, parrots and other pets, amputees on crutches and elderly people hunched over walking sticks,” said the Guardian.

Hamas said the return was “a victory for our people, and a declaration of failure and defeat for the Israeli occupation and transfer plans”.

More than a million Palestinians who lived in Gaza city were forced by Israeli aggression to flee to the south. 

Many of those heading north knew or suspected they would be returning to little more than ruins, but wanted to pitch tents on their own land after long months shifting between crowded displacement camps in the south of the strip. In Gaza City, cheering crowds waited to greet them.

“My heart is beating. I thought I would never come back,” said Osama, a 50-year-old public servant and father of five, as he arrived in the city, as quoted by the Guardian.

“Whether the ceasefire succeeds or not, we will never leave Gaza City and the north again, even if Israel sends [a] tank for each one of us. No more displacement.”

Israel had failed to achieve its declared goals of the genocide and of its war crimes against the occupied Palestinian people. It accepted the ceasefire because it did not achieve the return of its prisoners from the Palestinian resistance by cheer force.

The resistance against Israeli 77-year occupation of Palestine is now more popular than ever. The ranks of Hamas and other Palestinian liberation organizations will swell and idea of taking their homeland back from racist Zionists is deeper and stronger than before 7 October 2023.

By contrast, Israel is more divided, it has lost confidence in itself and in its military, and most of all it has become an entity that is based on immoral being full of war criminals who have committed a genocide in Gaza and in the end lost the war.

The majority of the Palestinians who are heading north knew or suspected they would be returning to little more than ruins.

The majority of the Palestinians who are heading north knew or suspected they would be returning to little more than ruins, but wanted to pitch tents on their own land after long months shifting between crowded displacement camps in the south of the strip. In Gaza City, cheering crowds waited to greet them.

Unlike the Israelis, the Palestinians, despite suffering a genocide on the hands of the Zionists, celebrate victory as they walk over the ruins of their homes, raising the V sign and looking forward to a victorious future and a return to their homes in all of Palestine_ meaning from the River to the Sea

“My heart is beating. I thought I would never come back,” said Osama, a 50-year-old public servant and father of five, as he arrived in the city, as quoted by the Guardian.

“Whether the ceasefire succeeds or not, we will never leave Gaza City and the north again, even if Israel sends [a] tank for each one of us. No more displacement.”

The return had been scheduled to start on Sunday, but was delayed for 24 hours by the first major crisis in a fragile ceasefire deal.

But Israeli PM Netanyahu claimed that the Israeli hostage Arbel Yehoud was not released on Saturday and he accused Hamas of violating the agreement. Yehoud was not female civilians to be part of the will be released group despite the claims. Thus, the checkpoints to the north stayed closed in response. Later the dispute was settled and on  Monday night, the Palestinian resistance released a video in which Yehoud said she was a soldier and declared her number in the Israeli army and how many years she served.

When the checkpoints finally opened on Monday morning, the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Zomlot, described the column of people walking back to their homes as a “crystal clear response to those who still plot to uproot us from our homeland,” as quoted by the Guardian.

“There is only one direction of travel ahead of the Palestinian people after 100 years of forced displacement and oppression: liberation and return!” he said in a post on social media.

There is only one direction of travel ahead of the Palestinian people after 100 years of forced displacement and oppression: liberation and return!
Returning back to victory, sooner or later.
The Return.

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