Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians returned to northern Gaza on Tuesday after the Israeli military withdrew from a key crossing that had previously blocked their movement during the Hamas-Israel war. The withdrawal was part of a ceasefire agreement between Hamas and Israel earlier this month.
Despite agreeing to the ceasefire, the Israeli government has vowed to resume military operations once the first stage of the deal is completed. At the start of the war, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to dismantle Hamas’s military infrastructure and remove it from power in Gaza. As this objective remains unfulfilled, Israel has committed to continuing the war.
Although negotiations to extend the ceasefire are set to begin next week, deep distrust between the two sides leaves little hope that it will last beyond its initial phase, which is scheduled to end in early March.
The sight of refugees carrying their belongings on foot was both emotional for Palestinians and concerning for Israelis, who fear the security implications of a repopulated northern Gaza. With Israeli forces no longer present in the area, there are growing concerns that Hamas could regain control and pose a renewed threat to Israel.
Before the war, northern Gaza was home to approximately one million people and borders Israeli communities known as the “Gaza Envelope.” These areas have been targeted by Hamas for over two decades, particularly since Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. The Palestinian cities of Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya previously served as Hamas’s strongholds and were the launch sites for its October 7, 2023, terrorist attack—one of the deadliest conflicts in the region in recent years.
Critics of the ceasefire argue that allowing Palestinians to return to these areas endangers Israel. They advocate for maintaining an unpopulated buffer zone along the border.
Everything is reversible. If there will be an operational need, the population can be moved again.
“Everything is reversible,” Dr. Harel Chorev of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Tel Aviv University, told The Media Line. “If there will be an operational need, the population can be moved again.”
Brig. Gen. (res.) Nitzan Nuriel, former director of the Counter-Terrorism Bureau at the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office, warned that allowing Palestinian residents to return would severely limit Israel’s ability to carry out future military operations.
The simple rules of engagement will become much more complicated
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“Any future evacuation will likely be for a much more limited time period and not see residents heading all the way to southern Gaza,” Nuriel told The Media Line. “It will also limit Israel’s ability to use firepower and undertake ground operations during the presence of a civilian population. The simple rules of engagement will become much more complicated.”
The ceasefire was reached after more than 15 months of war. Hamas’s surprise offensive resulted in the deaths of around 1,200 Israelis, thousands of injuries, and the capture of approximately 250 hostages. Of those, 90 remain in captivity. Some hostages have already been released or are set for release as part of the current ceasefire, while others, whose fate remains uncertain, may be freed in a second phase of negotiations.
Israel responded with a large-scale military operation in Gaza, aiming to destroy Hamas’s military capabilities and remove it from power. According to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry, over 47,000 Palestinians have been killed, and approximately 110,000 have been injured. Many areas in Gaza have been reduced to rubble, with UN figures indicating that over 90% of housing units have been destroyed and nearly 70% of all structures either damaged or obliterated.
The large-scale destruction drew international calls for Israel to halt the war and agree to a ceasefire months before it was finally reached.
“Israel now has much more operational freedom than it would have had if it had agreed to a ceasefire at the beginning of 2024,” said Chorev, addressing concerns that Israel may not be able to resume fighting if the ceasefire fails. “This freedom has been reached by the killing of approximately 20,000 Hamas terrorists and significant damage to military infrastructure, including tunnels and manufacturing workshops.”
According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), approximately 200,000 people returned to northern Gaza from the south on Monday. The UN estimates that nearly two million Palestinians were displaced during the war as the Israeli military advanced through the Gaza Strip. While some followed Israeli evacuation orders, others fled in fear of the massive air and ground offensive.
“The area does not look like what it used to, this is clear,” said Nuriel. “But the operational infrastructure that the army will face means it will essentially be starting from scratch, and this is a significant challenge.”
The ceasefire has facilitated the return of residents. As part of the deal, Hamas has begun releasing Israeli hostages, and Israeli forces have withdrawn from most of Gaza. Hundreds of Palestinian prisoners are also set to be released from Israeli jails as part of the agreement.
When the details of the deal emerged, some within the Netanyahu government criticized the withdrawal from northern Gaza, arguing that it would allow Hamas to regroup.
Hamas will take advantage of this time to reconstruct tunnels and train new recruits
“There is no doubt that Hamas will take advantage of this time to reconstruct tunnels and train new recruits,” Chorev said.
The war in Gaza quickly expanded into a broader regional conflict. The Lebanese-based terrorist group Hezbollah and Yemen’s Houthi rebels joined Hamas in attacking Israel. During the war, Israel and Iran engaged in direct strikes for the first time after decades of a shadow conflict. Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah severely weakened the Iran-backed group, which also contributed to the collapse of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria. Hamas cannot ignore this regional fallout, even as it gains temporary respite through the ceasefire.
“Hamas is currently limited in the resources it needs in order to recover,” Chorev added. “They are dependent on supplies from outside Gaza, and those supply lines have been damaged by Israel’s extensive attacks on the ‘resistance axis’ from Syria to Lebanon. Hamas now faces significant challenges in smuggling weapons.”
Israeli forces still control the Philadelphi Corridor in southern Gaza, a narrow strip of land bordering Egypt that has long served as a key supply route for Hamas. Hamas is unlikely to accept an ongoing Israeli presence there in future negotiations.
“Looking at the situation rationally, Hamas has suffered a significant blow and lacks the means to rebuild,” said Nuriel. “There is room for some optimism, but real optimism can only come if the government makes meaningful decisions about Gaza’s future and who will govern it after Hamas.”
This is a question that Netanyahu’s government has largely avoided for political reasons. The far-right coalition refuses to allow the Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank, to assume control of Gaza, arguing that it also supports terrorism.
Israeli media has reported that Egyptian and American security contractors have set up roadblocks leading to northern Gaza to monitor traffic and prevent terrorists from moving arms into the area.
“The likelihood of preventing small arms is very slim,” said Nuriel. “However, the intention of these roadblocks is to prevent the transfer of large rockets or missiles—those can be detected by these companies.”
As the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas holds, Israel faces not only military challenges but also political ones. A government that pledged to dismantle Hamas will face immense pressure, both domestically and internationally, should it decide to resume military operations in Gaza. That pressure may prove to be an even greater challenge than the war itself.