April 17, 2025
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed into the most heavily destroyed part of the Gaza Strip on Monday as Israel lifted its closure of the north for the first time since the early weeks of the 15-month war with Hamas in accordance with a fragile ceasefire.
Israel, meanwhile, announced that a Hamas list showed that eight of the 33 hostages to be released in the first phase of the truce are dead. Whether hostages are alive or dead 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.
On Monday, massive crowds of people walking with their belongings stretched along a main road running next to the coast in a stunning reversal of the mass exodus from the north at the start of the war that many Palestinians had feared Israel would make permanent.
Palestinians who have been sheltering in tent camps and schools-turned-shelters for over a year are eager to return to their homes — even though they have likely been damaged or destroyed.
Yasmin Abu Amshah, a mother of three, said she walked nearly 4 miles to reach her home in Gaza City, where she found it damaged but still 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. “The most important thing is that we returned.”
The ceasefire is aimed at winding down the deadliest and most destructive war ever fought between Israel and the Hamas terror organization and securing the release of dozens of hostages captured in the Oct. 7 attack. Terrorists murdered some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, in that assault and abducted another 250.
Israel responded with an air and ground war in which it says it has killed over 17,000 militants.
In the opening days of the war, Israel ordered the wholescale evacuation of the north and sealed it off shortly after ground troops moved in.
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.
Israel overnight said it had received a list of information from Hamas on whether hostages were alive or dead. Government spokesman David Mencer told journalists Monday that Hamas said that of the 33 to be released in the first phase, eight are dead and the other 25 are alive.
Approximately 90 hostages are still in Gaza. Prior to Monday’s announcement, Israel believed at least 35 of them were dead.
Under the first phase of the ceasefire, Hamas is to free a total of 33 hostages in exchange for the release of nearly 2,000 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. So far under the truce, seven hostages have been released in exchange for more than 300 prisoners, including many serving life sentences for deadly attacks on Israelis.
The second — and far more difficult — phase of the agreement has not yet been negotiated. Hamas says it will not release the remaining 60 or so hostages unless Israel ends the war, while Netanyahu says he is still committed to destroying the terrorist group and ending its nearly 18-year rule over Gaza.
