'No life, no water, no food,' man says as hundreds of thousands return to north Gaza

The joy of thousands of Palestinian families who made it back home to north Gaza after a ceasefire with Israel is turning to despair as the cold reality of uninhabitable, bombed-out homes and dire shortages of basic supplies sets in.

Many are complaining about a lack of running water that forces them to queue for hours to fill plastic containers for drinking or cleaning. With most homes now heaps of rubble as far as the eye can see, returnees have scoured whatever useful items remain from their property to erect makeshift tents.

At night, residential districts laid to waste by Israeli airstrikes and shelling sink into darkness for lack of electricity or fuel to operate standby generators.

"There is nothing, no life, no water, no food, no drink, nothing for living. Life is very, very hard. There is no Jabalia camp," said Hisham El-Err, standing next to the rubble of his multi-storey house in the biggest and mostly densely populated of the Gaza Strip's eight historic cinder-block refugee camps.

His extended family is now huddling in tents, which offer scant protection from Gaza's mid-winter chill.

By late on Tuesday, Gaza's Hamas authorities said most of the 650,000 people displaced from the north by the war had re-entered Gaza City and the north edge of the enclave, from areas to the south where fighting was less intense and destructive.

Many of those returning, often laden with what personal possessions they still had after months of being shunted around as battlegrounds shifted, had trekked 20 kilometres or more along the coastal highway.

Fahad Abu Jalhoum returned with his family to Jabalia from the Al Mawasi area in south Gaza. But the destruction they found was so pervasive they had been forced to go back south.

"It's just ghosts without souls [in the north]," Abu Jalhoum told Reuters back in Al Mawasi.

"We all missed the north, but when I went there, I was shocked. So I returned to [the south] until we get relief from God."

Hamas, Israel spar over aid

A Hamas official who spoke on condition of anonymity said smaller amounts of fuel, cooking gas and tents had been brought into Gaza than what had been agreed in ceasefire negotiations, which Israel strongly denied.

The Hamas-run Gaza government media office put the initial need of tents at 135,000, but the Hamas official said only around 2,000 had got in since the deal took effect on Jan. 19.

He also said work to rehabilitate hospitals and bakeries knocked out by the fighting had not begun and urged mediators to ensure more aid flows in, adding that dissatisfaction among militant groups could affect the truce.

A spokesperson for COGAT, the Israeli defence agency that liaises with the Palestinians, said that tens of thousands of tents have entered Gaza since the ceasefire and that gas and fuel are being delivered daily and in keeping with agreements.

UNRWA ban to take effect Thursday

Implementation of a ban on the UN Palestinian relief agency UNRWA in Israel is set to start on Thursday.

The law, adopted in October, bans UNRWA's operation on Israeli land — including East Jerusalem, which Israel annexed in a move not recognized internationally — and contact with Israeli authorities from Thursday.

Ahmed Sorour said he worries market prices in Gaza will go up for basic supplies and medicine as a result of the ban.

"Our whole lives will be affected," Sorour told CBC News in Deir el-Balah in central Gaza Wednesday. "All of the health services [they provide] will be stopped."

Ahmed Naseer echoed those concerns.

"There is no alternative... UNRWA is responsible for everything," Naseer said.

UNRWA, which provides aid, health and education services to millions in the Palestinian territories and neighbouring Arab countries of Syria, Lebanon and Jordan, said operations in the Gaza Strip and West Bank will also suffer.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini told the UN Security Council Tuesday the move will be "disastrous." 

Under the deal, 33 hostages held by Palestinian militants in Gaza are to be freed in the first six weeks of the ceasefire, in exchange for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners, many of them serving life sentences in Israel.

Seven hostages and 290 prisoners have so far been exchanged. Three more hostages are to be swapped for tens of Palestinian detainees on Thursday, according to Hamas and the smaller allied Islamic Jihad group.

Hamas initially said it will release three Israelis — two women and an 80-year-old man — but later said it would release eight captives on Thursday, with the addition of five Thai nationals.

A second stage of the deal, due to begin by Feb. 4, is meant to open the way to the release of more than 60 other hostages, including men of military age, and a full Israeli military withdrawal from Gaza.

If that succeeds, a formal end to the war could follow, along with talks on the monumental challenge of reconstructing Gaza, now widely demolished by an Israeli onslaught that killed more than 47,000 Palestinians, according to Gaza's Health Ministry.

The conflict was triggered by a Hamas-led cross-border attack in southern Israel that killed 1,200 people, according to Israeli tallies, and saw more than 250 taken hostage. About 90 Israelis and foreigners remain held in Gaza. It is unclear how many are alive.