Israel must allow tents and caravans to immediately be delivered to the Gaza Strip, a United Nations expert says, as displaced Palestinians returning to the north of the bombarded territory have found their homes and neighbourhoods destroyed.
Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, said people are finding nothing but rubble in areas from which Israeli forces have withdrawn in northern Gaza.
“The psychological impacts and trauma are profound, and that’s what we are seeing right now as people are returning to northern Gaza,” he told Al Jazeera in an interview on Saturday.
The UN estimated that 92 percent of all residential buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since the war began, and hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians have been forced to live in tents and other makeshift shelters.Tens of thousands of Palestinians have been streaming back into Gaza’s north after Israeli forces pulled back on Friday as part of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas to halt the two-year conflict.
Palestinians across the coastal enclave have welcomed the suspension of Israel’s bombardment, which has killed more than 67,700 people since October 2023 and plunged Gaza into a humanitarian crisis.
Human Rights Glance
The most popular and potentially unifying Palestinian leader — Marwan Barghouti — is not among the prisoners Israel intends to free in exchange for hostages held by Hamas under the new Gaza ceasefire deal.
Some of the activists detained while trying to reach Gaza by sea have returned to their home countries to describe abuse and humiliation at the hands of Israeli guards.
Several international activists deported from Israel after joining a Gaza aid flotilla have accused Israeli forces of mistreating climate campaigner Greta Thunberg.
Dozens were killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza on Saturday, local health officials said, despite a demand from U.S. President Donald Trump for Israel to stop bombing in response to a declaration by Hamas that it was ready to free hostages under his plan to end the two-year-old war.





























