Extraordinary footage showing thousands of Palestinians making emotional journey home

7 months ago
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Drone footage captured on Monday (January 27) showed large crowds of Palestinians returning to Gaza City on foot under a ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel.
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Tens of thousands of Palestinians streamed along the main roads leading north in Gaza on Monday after Hamas agreed to hand over three Israeli hostages later this week and Israeli forces began to withdraw from a main corridor across the enclave.
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Witnesses said the first residents arrived in Gaza City in the early morning after the first crossing point in central Gaza opened at 7:00 a.m. (0500 GMT). Another crossing opened around three hours later, letting in vehicles.
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Zerohedge:
For the first time after nearly a year-and-a-half, tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians are returning to their homes in the northern Gaza Strip en masse.
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Photos and overhead drone footage reveal surprisingly large throngs of Gazan families returning to what are likely destroyed homes and communities on foot, sometimes carrying all possessions on their backs.
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Al Jazeera is capturing many of these scenes, and spoke with some of the returning displaced. "We want to go see our family. I want to see my mother and father. We haven’t seen them for 15 months. It’s a long time," Ahmad Adas, a young displaced Palestinian, told the outlet.
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And 19-year old Mohammed Adas described, "I haven’t seen my family for a year and a half. I’ve been waiting for three days to go to my parents. We are tired. I want to go to Gaza City, we’re not coming back here."
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The ceasefire has held after two rounds of hostage exchanges, and most of the displaced have been living in crowded and squalid tent camps or schools which have been turned into shelters.
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"Starting at 7 a.m., Palestinians were allowed to cross on foot without inspection through part of the so-called Netzarim Corridor, a military zone bisecting the territory just south of Gaza City that Israel carved out early in the war," Times of Israel details.
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"Massive crowds of people carrying their belongings on foot stretched along a coastal highway in a stunning reversal of the mass exodus from the north at the start of the war," the report continues.
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Read entire article HERE: https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/stunning-images-show-tens-thousands-gazans-returning-destroyed-homes-foot
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Source of video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWZPzyU-09c

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