Displaced Palestinians returning to Gaza City after Israel's 15-month genocidal war met with widespread devastation, as seeking shelter among the ruins and searching for missing relatives amid the chaotic homecoming continued Tuesday.
Gaza City, in the north of the enclave, is a shell of the bustling, rough-edged urban center it was before the war, with swathes of buildings destroyed by Israeli bombardments and piles of rubble and torn-up concrete on every side.
"Look at this scene, there is nothing to say," said a man who gave his name as Abu Mohammad as he searched for a place to settle. "People will sleep on the ground. There is nothing left."
Many of those returning, often laden with what personal possessions they still have after months of being moved around as the focus of the war shifted, had walked 20 kilometers (12 miles) or more along the coastal highway north.
"I am waiting for my father, mother and brother. We lost them on the way," said Jameel Abed, who walked up from the central area of the Gaza Strip. "We found some lights here and we are waiting for them," he said.
"There is no car, no tuktuk, no donkey cart, no vehicle, nothing that could move on this road."
By late Monday, Gaza's Hamas authorities said more than 300,000 people, or almost half of those displaced from the north during the war, had crossed into Gaza City and the north edge of the enclave from areas in the south.
Even as those who arrived in Gaza looked around for somewhere to settle down, tens of thousands were still moving north Tuesday as mediators began preliminary work on the second stage of cease-fire negotiations due to begin next week.
Three more Israeli hostages are due to be handed over on Thursday by Hamas, the Palestinian resistance group still in control of Gaza, with another three expected Saturday, in exchange for scores of Palestinian prisoners set for release from Israeli jails, some of whom will go into exile.
In Cairo, a high-profile Hamas team led by Mohammad Darwish, head of the group's leading council, arrived for talks with Egyptian mediators and to welcome 70 Palestinian prisoners who arrived in Cairo before being moved to third countries who would be willing to host them.
These include Qatar, Türkiye and Algeria according to Hamas and other sources.
Under the terms of the cease-fire, agreed this month with Egyptian and Qatari mediation and U.S. support, 33 hostages are due to be released during a six-week ceasefire, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them serving life sentences in Israeli jails. Seven hostages and 290 prisoners have so far been exchanged.
A second stage, which will decide what happens to more than 60 other hostages, including men of military age as well as a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza, is due to begin by next Tuesday.
If that succeeds, a full end to the war could follow. The conflict was triggered by the Hamas incursion of southern on Oct. 7, 2023, which caused 1,200 deaths and took 250 hostages, according to an Israeli toll.
It would also open the way to talks on reconstructing Gaza, now largely destroyed by a genocidal Israeli war that killed almost 47,000 Palestinians, according to Palestinian health authorities.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has faced pressure from some hardliners in his government, unhappy that the agreement leaves Hamas still in power in Gaza, not to proceed to the second stage but to recommence fighting to secure what they see as total victory.
But Sami Abu Zuhri, a senior Hamas official, said the group believed the talks would go ahead.
"We are ready to begin negotiations for the second phase at the specified time and are confident that Netanyahu has no choice but to proceed with the second phase," he said.
What would follow a full implementation of the cease-fire remains unclear after Israel's repeated declarations that Hamas will not be allowed to remain in power in Gaza.
U.S. President Donald Trump's call for Palestinians in Gaza to be taken to Egypt or Jordan, though strongly rejected in the region and by Palestinian officials and residents, has further complicated the outlook.
