A vast crowd of Gazans massed near an Israeli military barrier preventing them from heading to their homes in the north on Sunday amid a row between Hamas and Israel over the terms of their ceasefire deal.
Aerial footage from AFPTV showed the crowd fanning out for hundreds of meters from a junction on a coastal road in the Nuseirat area and spilling onto a nearby beach.
Dotted among the crowd were water tankers, ambulances, donkey carts, TV crews and their vehicles, and dozens of tents in which displaced Gazans sat and waited for permission to continue their journey.
AFP journalists at the scene said the mass of people stretched for three kilometers (1.9 miles) along Al-Rashid Road, with Gaza police preventing civilians from getting close to the Israelis, whose jets and drones flew overhead.
A few kilometers inland, hundreds of Palestinian families were waiting next to their cars in a long traffic jam on Salah al-Din Street, with everything they owned piled in great mounds atop their vehicles and strapped down tight.
"Tens of thousands of displaced people are waiting near the Netzarim Corridor to return to the northern Gaza Strip," Gaza civil defense agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP, with Israel refusing to allow them through in a dispute over a hostage release.
Ismail al-Thawabtah, director general of the government media office in Hamas-run Gaza, also said there were tens of thousands waiting at the junction.
He put the total number of Gazans wanting to return to the north at "between 615,000 and 650,000", with two-thirds of them likely to use the coastal road.
The Netzarim Corridor is a seven-kilometer strip of land militarized by Israel that bisects the Gaza Strip from the Israeli border to the Mediterranean Sea. The corridor cuts off the north from the rest of the territory.
Israel and Hamas have accused each other of violating the terms of the ceasefire, which began a week ago.
As part of the deal, Israel was due to let displaced Gazans cross the corridor and return to their homes, with Hamas officials saying this would happen on Saturday.
Israel, however, accused Hamas of reneging on the deal by not releasing hostage Arbel Yehud on Saturday. Yehud was one the 251 hostages seized during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel that sparked the war.
As a civilian woman, Yehud "was supposed to be released" as part of the second hostage-prisoner swap under the truce deal, a statement from the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
"Israel will not allow the passage of Gazans to the northern part of the Gaza Strip until the release of civilian Arbel Yehud... is arranged," it added.
Two Hamas sources told AFP on Saturday that Yehud was "alive and in good health", with one source saying she would be "released as part of the third swap set for next Saturday", on February 1.
Hamas on Sunday said Israel blocking returns to the north amounted to a truce violation, adding it has provided "all the necessary guarantees" for Yehud's release.
On the other side of the corridor in north Gaza was Bashar Naser, a 28-year-old from Jabalia, who had been waiting for his relatives since early morning.
"We want to welcome them and celebrate... this is a great joy."
