KHAN YOUNIS — Moamen Salhiya, who returned from southern Gaza to his home area in Jabalia refugee camp in the north, did not find the house he left behind when he was displaced in October 2023. He did not even find an empty space free of rubble to set up a tent for himself and his family.
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Just one day after returning north with his wife and four children, Salhiya was forced to return again to his displacement area in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis, resuming his life in the same tent he had lived in since the beginning of the war, as there were no conditions for survival in the north.
Salhiya is not alone in this reverse displacement; he is one of thousands of displaced people who returned to northern Gaza only to be displaced again to the south after finding their areas completely destroyed. They were unable to find their homes, nor even a sip of clean water to quench their thirst.
The water crisis and the overwhelming rubble are among the most pressing challenges faced by returnees to the North. No official or international body provided them with temporary shelters, drinking water or humanitarian aid, despite these provisions being part of the ceasefire agreement.
Aid remains blocked
Israel has failed to fulfill its commitments under the humanitarian protocol signed with Hamas as part of the ceasefire agreement. It has obstructed the entry of humanitarian aid, relief supplies and temporary shelters that the residents of Gaza desperately need.
According to the humanitarian protocol, 60,000 caravans and 200,000 temporary tents were supposed to be brought into the Strip to accommodate the displaced whose homes were completely destroyed by the Israeli occupation. The agreement, as stated by the Palestinian Government Media Office, also stipulated the entry of 600 aid trucks per day, including 50 fuel and gas trucks, totaling 4,200 trucks within a week.
Israel is exacerbating the humanitarian crisis.
Additionally, it included the entry of humanitarian, medical and health equipment, civil defense supplies, rubble removal machinery, infrastructure maintenance equipment and the reactivation of the power plant.
Israel has not yet implemented any of these commitments. Instead, it continues to delay and impose obstacles, exacerbating the humanitarian crisis to catastrophic levels and deepening the suffering of the population — an issue with serious and unprecedented repercussions.
Back to the tent
In Beit Hanoun, in the far north of the Strip, Mohammed Al-Kafarna returned to his area after a displacement journey that lasted a year and three months in Deir al-Balah in the middle of the Strip. However, upon his arrival, he found himself facing a terrifying scene, as he was unable to recognize the location of his house due to the great extent of the destruction, as the entire area had been transformed into mountains of rubble.
With his wife and children, Al-Kafarna tried to adapt by setting up a new tent. But the lack of drinking and service water, along with his need to travel more than 3 kilometers daily to fill an 18 liter jug, led him to decide to return to Deir al-Balah.
“After we were allowed to return to our home area, I left early in the morning, heading along the coastal Rashid Street, walking with my children for nine kilometers until we reached Gaza City,” recalls Al-Kafarna “From there we took a donkey cart to reach Beit Hanoun. But after only three days, we had to return again to Deir al-Balah because of the complete lack of basic services,” .
Al-Kafarna found no organization offering him a tent, no clean drinking water and no emergency relief aid, forcing him to return to his previous tent in Deir al-Balah, where conditions were no less dire but at least somewhat more stable.
No answers
In Beit Lahia, neighboring Beit Hanoun, Alaa Al-Attar walked back to his area as soon as the Israeli army allowed displaced people to return north. Before the war, Al-Attar lived in a 180-square-meter house, surrounded by a 200-square-meter garden filled with apple, orange and lemon trees.
Yet upon his return, he found neither his house nor a single tree from the garden he had nurtured for years. The Israeli war machine had destroyed everything, leaving Al-Attar in shock over the loss of the home he had lived in for 25 years with his wife and children.
Al-Attar questioned the international promises of urgent relief.
Al-Attar’s home was not the only one destroyed in Beit Lahia. The Israeli occupation bombed and bulldozed thousands of homes, to the extent that many owners could not even recognize their locations due to the obliteration of all landmarks caused by the devastation.
Al-Attar and his family spent just one day among the ruins of their home in Beit Lahia before deciding to return to their tent in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. That area had become the only refuge for him and thousands of returnees who found no form of aid upon their return.
Al-Attar questioned the international promises of urgent relief that was supposed to be awaiting them upon their return. But he found no answers, nor was he provided with a tent, a mobile home or even drinking water. He is not the only one asking these questions — thousands of returnees to northern Gaza echo the same concerns after finding themselves abandoned in a grim reality, without shelter, water, food or essential humanitarian services.
