Families returning to northern Gaza are ‘shocked by the scale of destruction’ there – Unicef
Welcome back to our live coverage of the latest news from the Middle East.
Displaced Palestinian families who have returned to northern Gaza since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month have been “shocked” by the “complete scale of destruction” of their homes and neighbourhoods, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).
Tess Ingram, a spokesperson for Unicef, said children in particular have been traumatised by Israel’s war on the territory, which has left many communities without adequate healthcare, sanitation, shelter and water.
Israel’s campaign of intense aerial bombing and mass demolitions levelled large swathes of Gaza, and left whole neighbourhoods barely habitable. Nine in 10 homes in the territory have been destroyed or damaged, UN figures show. Schools, hospitals, mosques, cemeteries, shops and offices have been repeatedly hit.
About 700,000 northern Gaza residents fled to southern areas at the start of the war in October 2023, when the Israeli military issued mass evacuation orders.
In a post on X on Sunday, Ingram, who has been speaking to Palestinian people returning to the northern part of the strip this week, said in a video:
The families that I’ve spoken to this week here in the north of Gaza have been shocked by what they have returned to.
They’ve been shocked by the complete scale of this destruction. Even after seeing photos and videos from the south, they hoped that their homes, their neighborhoods, their communities, maybe had been spared.
And as they come back here and realise that’s not the case the hope that they’ve been holding on to for 15 months crashes into a deep heaviness, and this is particularly traumatic for children, children who have endured so much already and are now coming back to communities without water and without health care, without the basics that they need to survive.
More people are returning to northern Gaza now as the Israeli military has completed its withdrawal from the Netzarim Corridor, that bisects the northern and southern halves of the Gaza Strip.
In other developments:
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Egypt will host an Arab summit on 27 February to discuss what it said were “serious” developments for Palestinian people, according to the country’s foreign ministry. Egypt has rejected Donald Trump’s plans – condemned as ethnic cleansing – to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Jordan.
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Speaking on Sunday, the US President repeated his pledge to take control of the Gaza Strip. “I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished,” he told reporters.
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A spokesperson for Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu said that an Israeli delegation arrived in Qatar on Sunday for further ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel. Reuters reports that indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas on the next stage of the ceasefire are set to begin this week.
Key events
Tens of thousands of Iranians marked the anniversary of the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution, the first such rally since Donald Trump returned to office last month and restarted his “maximum pressure” campaign targeting Tehran.
The annual commemoration of the end of the rule of the American-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and the creation of Iran’s Shiite theocracy comes this year as deep uncertainty lingers across the country.
Iran faces crushing sanctions wrecking its economy and the threat of more coming from Trump, even as the US president suggests he wants to reach a deal with Tehran over its rapidly advancing nuclear program.
“If the US were sincere about negotiations, why did they sanction us?” Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian said earlier today.
Trump has said he wants a “verified nuclear peace agreement” with Iran and that it was essential that the country did not have a nuclear weapon. As the Guardian’s diplomatic editor, Patrick Wintour, notes in this story, the Republican president seems willing to hold talks with Iran to try to replace the nuclear deal signed in 2015 (but from which he pulled the US out in 2018, despite European opposition).
As its 2015 nuclear deal with major powers has eroded over the years, Iran expanded and accelerated its nuclear programme, reducing the time it would need to build a nuclear bomb if it chose to, though it denies wanting to.
The freed Israeli hostage Eli Sharabi did not know his wife and two teenage daughters were killed in the 7 October attack until after his release, his British family have confirmed.
An Israeli soldier broke the news about what had happened to his wife, Lianne, who grew up near Bristol, and their two British-Israeli children Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, after Sharabi and two other hostages were released by Hamas in exchange for 183 Palestinian prisoners on Saturday.
Sharabi had spent 491 days in captivity unaware that, after armed men entered his home and shot the family dog, they locked Lianne and the children in their safe room and set it on fire, Lianne’s parents told the BBC. Their bodies were later found “all cuddled together”.
Sharabi’s brother, Yossi, was also taken hostage on 7 October. He died early last year when the Israeli army bombed a building in Gaza near where he was being held.
Shortly before he was handed over to the Red Cross on Saturday, Sharabi was escorted on to a stage by masked Hamas fighters, where he said: “I feel very, very happy today to return to my family and friends – to my wife and daughters. I truly hope to see them very soon.”
He appeared emaciated and is now being treated for severe malnutrition at a hospital in Tel Aviv.
You can read the full story by my colleague, Donna Ferguson, here:
Unrwa still operates in Gaza, West Bank and Jerusalem despite ban – report
Unrwa has provided education, health and other basic services to millions of Palestinian refugees across the region, including in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. The Israeli government has accused the UN agency of allowing Hamas militants to infiltrate its staff, an allegation the agency denies.
At the end of January, Israel formally banned Unrwa from operating on its territory but many operations are continuing, according to Hareetz. Here is an extract from its story published yesterday:
In contrast to concerns at Unrwa and among Palestinians, Israel has so far not taken any direct action aimed at preventing Unrwa operations in East Jerusalem. Schools in the Shoafat refugee camp and in other locations in the city, as well as Unrwa-run clinics, worked as usual last week, as did cleaning services provided by the agency at Shoafat. Officials in Unrwa say that they have not received any instructions from Israel to stop operating in East Jerusalem.
However, in the wake of these laws, the visas of 25 international employees who managed Unrwa operations in Jerusalem and the West Bank were revoked. These employees left Israel and are continuing to work from Jordan.
Local employees, who constitute the vast majority of the people working for Unrwa, continue to work as usual. The law is unclear with regard to whether Israeli banks and other organizations can continue maintaining their ties with Unrwa, but most employees are paid through Palestinian banks.
A few international employees still work in Gaza, and the agency continues to operate there on a large scale.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (Unrwa) has said people living in makeshift tents in Gaza have been displaced due to “severe winter storms”.
In a post on X, Unrwa wrote:
Hundreds of families in Deir al-Balah and North Gaza have been affected, with hundreds of tents destroyed and several households displaced.
Unrwa is delivering tents, tarps, blankets and other essential supplies to thousands across Gaza struggling with the harsh conditions.
Despite the increase in aid deliveries coming into the strip because of the ceasefire, basic supplies such as warm clothing also are still not widely available, according to reports.
Families returning to northern Gaza are ‘shocked by the scale of destruction’ there – Unicef
Welcome back to our live coverage of the latest news from the Middle East.
Displaced Palestinian families who have returned to northern Gaza since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas came into effect last month have been “shocked” by the “complete scale of destruction” of their homes and neighbourhoods, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (Unicef).
Tess Ingram, a spokesperson for Unicef, said children in particular have been traumatised by Israel’s war on the territory, which has left many communities without adequate healthcare, sanitation, shelter and water.
Israel’s campaign of intense aerial bombing and mass demolitions levelled large swathes of Gaza, and left whole neighbourhoods barely habitable. Nine in 10 homes in the territory have been destroyed or damaged, UN figures show. Schools, hospitals, mosques, cemeteries, shops and offices have been repeatedly hit.
About 700,000 northern Gaza residents fled to southern areas at the start of the war in October 2023, when the Israeli military issued mass evacuation orders.
In a post on X on Sunday, Ingram, who has been speaking to Palestinian people returning to the northern part of the strip this week, said in a video:
The families that I’ve spoken to this week here in the north of Gaza have been shocked by what they have returned to.
They’ve been shocked by the complete scale of this destruction. Even after seeing photos and videos from the south, they hoped that their homes, their neighborhoods, their communities, maybe had been spared.
And as they come back here and realise that’s not the case the hope that they’ve been holding on to for 15 months crashes into a deep heaviness, and this is particularly traumatic for children, children who have endured so much already and are now coming back to communities without water and without health care, without the basics that they need to survive.
More people are returning to northern Gaza now as the Israeli military has completed its withdrawal from the Netzarim Corridor, that bisects the northern and southern halves of the Gaza Strip.
In other developments:
-
Egypt will host an Arab summit on 27 February to discuss what it said were “serious” developments for Palestinian people, according to the country’s foreign ministry. Egypt has rejected Donald Trump’s plans – condemned as ethnic cleansing – to move Palestinians out of their territories in Gaza and the occupied West Bank to neighbouring countries such as Egypt and Jordan.
-
Speaking on Sunday, the US President repeated his pledge to take control of the Gaza Strip. “I’m committed to buying and owning Gaza. As far as us rebuilding it, we may give it to other states in the Middle East to build sections of it. Other people may do it through our auspices. But we’re committed to owning it, taking it, and making sure that Hamas doesn’t move back. There’s nothing to move back into. The place is a demolition site. The remainder will be demolished,” he told reporters.
-
A spokesperson for Israeli prime minster Benjamin Netanyahu said that an Israeli delegation arrived in Qatar on Sunday for further ceasefire talks between Hamas and Israel. Reuters reports that indirect negotiations between Israel and Hamas on the next stage of the ceasefire are set to begin this week.
