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\n Hana Salah<\/p>\n
Palestinian journalist<\/p>\n
A NEW DISPUTE over the next phase of Gaza\u2019s ceasefire has put the question of Israeli withdrawal back at the centre of negotiations.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump announced on 31 July that an agreement had been reached for the \u201ccomplete disarmament\u201d of Hamas, saying Israeli forces would withdraw as the process is completed. But the sequencing remains contested, with Hamas saying it will not take steps towards disarmament before an Israeli withdrawal and Israel\u2019s fulfilment of its ceasefire commitments.<\/p>\n
For Palestinians displaced along Gaza\u2019s eastern edge, the disagreement has immediate consequences. Months of expanding Israeli military lines have left homes and farmland inside restricted areas \u2014 and families uncertain whether any future withdrawal will allow them to return.<\/p>\n
Sabah Salama has been waiting for exactly that.<\/p>\n
Three months ago, as Israeli forces pushed westward beyond the area Palestinians had come to know as the Yellow Line, the 36-year-old mother of three fled her damaged home in Wadi al-Salqa, east of Deir al-Balah. She had fled and returned repeatedly throughout the war. This time was different: the line itself had moved past her home.\n<\/p>\n
Nothing left<\/p>\n
When the guns briefly fell silent during the truce, she returned to her bombed home with her children and tried to rebuild a life from the rubble. Plastic sheets replaced walls. Broken concrete became shelter. A small travel bag stayed packed by the door.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe returned on our own responsibility, and we fled on our own responsibility,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one told us when to leave or when it was safe to come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
However, in early May, Salama says members of an armed local group operating alongside Israeli forces drove through the area warning residents to evacuate, saying the army was preparing to expand the military zone further westward.<\/p>\n
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\n Nablus, Palestine. 6 Aug, 2026. Israeli army forces on patrol in the West Bank. Alamy Stock Photo<\/p>\n
Alamy Stock Photo\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThere was nowhere else to go,\u201d she says. \u201cNo dignified place for us to be displaced to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the past, we always came back to our destroyed home, no matter how dangerous it was,\u201d she says. Since the beginning of May, she has not returned home.<\/p>\n
Like thousands of families living along Gaza\u2019s eastern edge, Um Yamen now finds herself displaced once again \u2014 not by a single air strike or evacuation order, but by the slow expansion of shifting military boundaries across the Strip.<\/p>\n
Her family now shelters near Salah al-Din Road, the main artery dividing eastern and western Gaza, waiting for any sign that they might return.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if the tanks retreat only a few metres, we will go back immediately,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n
Tightening the grip<\/p>\n
For months, Palestinians had watched the military lines move westward across Gaza. On 15 May, Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed the scale of that expansion, saying Israeli forces now controlled around 60% of the Strip \u2014 a statement widely seen as acknowledgement that the ceasefire boundaries had effectively collapsed.<\/p>\n
The territorial expansion unfolded alongside an intensified Israeli assassination campaign that killed Hamas military leader Izz al-Din al-Haddad and his successor Mohammed Odeh within days of each other.<\/p>\n
Under the ceasefire agreement that came into effect last October, Israeli forces were expected to withdraw to the so-called \u201cYellow Line\u201d, a temporary military boundary separating Israeli troop positions from areas Palestinians could re-enter. The agreement also included a halt to military operations, increased humanitarian aid deliveries, prisoner exchanges and further phased Israeli withdrawals.<\/p>\n
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But rights groups and humanitarian organisations say Israel gradually treated the Yellow Line not as a temporary deployment line, but as the basis for a new security boundary inside Gaza.<\/p>\n
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