More Than 100,000 Gazans Still Wait to Return Home

More than 100,000 Palestinians from Gaza remain stranded abroad nearly a year after the ceasefire, with return still blocked by destroyed homes, border restrictions, Israeli military control and the absence of meaningful reconstruction. Reuters reported on October 4 that only around 7,000 Palestinians have managed to return, leaving families dispersed across Egypt, Turkey and other countries with no clear route home.

The numbers expose the gap between a ceasefire on paper and actual freedom of movement. Israeli forces still occupy more than 60 percent of the Gaza Strip, according to Reuters, while strikes continue and large areas remain unsafe or inaccessible. Inside Gaza, most residents still live in temporary or damaged shelter with limited aid and little reconstruction.

The return crisis is unfolding alongside continued Israeli attacks. Pamphlets reported this week on an Israeli strike that killed Christian mother Maysa Abu Daoud and her daughter Mary in Gaza City, one of a series of incidents that have kept the ceasefire fragile and reinforced the uncertainty facing families considering return.

For Palestinians abroad, the problem is not simply whether a crossing is technically open. A family can only return if it can reach Gaza, survive the journey, find shelter, access water and medical care, and live without being pushed again by military operations. That is why return has become a political question about control over territory rather than a narrow humanitarian logistics problem.

OCHA has repeatedly described most Palestinians inside Gaza as displaced and confined to shrinking areas with overstretched services. In May, the UN agency said residents were largely unable to access other parts of the occupied Palestinian territory or travel abroad except for a very small number approved for medical evacuation. The same structure works in reverse: the right to leave and the right to come home are both filtered through a system of military and border control.

The human consequences are visible in the families Reuters interviewed in Cairo. Omar al-Hassayna, who fled Gaza after losing hundreds of relatives in a 2023 strike, is among those waiting outside the enclave while members of his family remain scattered across several countries. His case is extreme in its scale of loss, but the broader condition is shared by tens of thousands: exile has continued after the bombing campaign that forced people out.

Reconstruction is the other half of the return question. Destroyed neighborhoods, damaged infrastructure and restricted access to building materials mean that even Palestinians who can physically re-enter Gaza may be returning to tents, ruins or overcrowded shelters rather than functioning communities. Without large-scale reconstruction, return can become movement back into displacement rather than restoration of ordinary life.

That distinction matters politically. If more than 100,000 Gazans remain abroad while most of the population inside the Strip remains displaced, the post-ceasefire order is still reproducing one of the war’s central outcomes: Palestinians separated from homes, land and family networks while control over movement remains outside their hands.

Sources: Reuters — Gazans abroad wait to return · OCHA — humanitarian situation, May 1, 2026 · Photo source: Ashraf Amra / UNRWA via Wikimedia Commons