میدل-ایست-آیMore than 500,000 people return to Gaza City following ceasefire
More than 500,000 people return to Gaza City following ceasefire
Thousands of bodies are being recovered from the rubble as Palestinians begin to return home
Palestinians make their way to Gaza City through the so-called "Netzarim corridor" from Nuseirat in the central Gaza Strip on 11 October 2025 (Eyad Baba / AFP)
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More than 500,000 people have returned to Gaza City after a ceasefire was declared in the enclave, the civil defence agency said on Saturday.
Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the civil defence, said there had been a mass movement following the apparent end of Israel's assault on Friday.
"More than half a million people have returned to Gaza [City] since yesterday," he said, according to AFP.
As the dust settles amid hopes that the current round of conflict is over, Palestinians have started taking stock of two years of war.
More than 67,000 people have been killed by Israel's bombardment, which has also left most of Gaza in ruins.
The civil defence said on Saturday that 9,500 people were still missing under the rubble across Gaza.
Its teams have already begun rescue operations, recovering the bodies of some 155 people so far.
It added that it had received 75 distress calls since dawn today, and called on the Red Cross to coordinate with Israel to locate missing people as it lacks the resources and equipment to retrieve all the bodies from the rubble.
People returning to Gaza City have erected makeshift tents on the rubble, but lack adequate shelter as aid is not due to enter the Strip until Sunday.
Some 700,000 people were displaced from Gaza City and the north by intense Israeli bombardment and raids on the area in the weeks before the ceasefire came into force.
Meanwhile, the mayor of the southern Khan Younis governorate has reported that 85 percent of the area had been levelled by Israeli attacks.
He added that some 400,000 tonnes of rubble must be removed before any reconstruction work can begin.
The ceasefire agreement struck by Hamas and Israel stipulates an increase in aid deliveries into the Strip, as well as the opening of the Rafah crossing with Egypt, although questions remain around how the aid will be distributed and which agencies will be permitted to do it.
The UN said that some 170,000 metric tonnes of food, shelter and medicine is being held in warehouses outside Gaza and that aid workers are "ready and eager to act".
As part of the first phase of US President Donald Trump's 20-point plan, Gaza's crossings will fully reopen on Monday, allowing the entry of 400 aid trucks daily, expected to rise to 600 in the following days.
UN spokesperson Stephane Dujjaric said negotiations were ongoing with Israel to determine the amount of aid and frequency of deliveries, as well as the opening of more crossings.
"What has changed dramatically yesterday to today is the fact that the guns appear to have been silenced," Dujjaric said. "It's safer for our people to operate."
The UN agency for Palestinian refugees (Unrwa) said they had enough supplies in its warehouses to fill 6,000 trucks and that their teams stand ready to initiate distribution of lifesaving aid in the Strip.
Sam Rose, Unrwa's director of affairs in Gaza, told Middle East Eye that questions remained around the agency's ability to deliver the aid due to an ongoing Israeli ban on its activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
While the current ban does not apply to Unrwa's activities within Gaza, the "no-contact" policy bars their trucks from entering the enclave.
Rose said the agency is preparing to get other organisations to bring their supplies into the Strip.
"What we're advocating for is that Unrwa be allowed to distribute those supplies once they get to Gaza," he told MEE. "The legislation says nothing about Unrwa's activities inside the territory."
Rose emphasised the centrality of Unrwa's expertise in securing an effective large-scale distribution of aid in Gaza.
"We've got enough food to feed everyone for between two and three months, and the population is starving. We've got shelter items for hundreds of thousands of people, blankets for over a million people."
Unlike other NGOs, Unrwa's long history of working in Gaza means it has secured the networks and community's trust to coordinate fast and effective aid distribution, he added.
"We have an ability. We're making everyone's lives much more difficult inside of Gaza if Unrwa is not permitted to be part of aid distribution," Rose said.
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