What is it like to return to Gaza?

0:00Today on State of the World, what's it like to return to Gaza?

0:09You're listening to State of the World from NPR. We bring you the day's most vital international stories, up close where they're happening. It's Friday, February 20th. I'm Greg Dixon. Palestinians should be able to return to Gaza. That's according to the 20-point ceasefire plan brokered by President Trump. One of the points says, quote, No one will be forced to leave Gaza, and those who wish to leave will be free to do so and free to return. While technically a border crossing between Egypt and Gaza is now open, few people have been able to come and go so far. NPR's Anas Baba takes us to Gaza, where he met some of the people who have successfully returned.

0:52They told him it was a harrowing and uncertain ordeal.

1:00Amina Ousmane's grandchildren are excited to have her back. The 55-year-old spent nearly two years in Egypt, where she was seeking health care. She was trapped outside Gaza that whole time and was dreaming to return, even in war. And she was finally able to do so this month, because of a ceasefire brokered by President Trump that demanded Israel open Gaza's border with Egypt. I was so scared. I was scared. I was scared. I was scared. It smelled like Gaza, says Ousmane. But after bossing barbed wire and blast walls, it looked nothing like the Gaza she knew.

1:42She says when the bus stopped near her home in southern Gaza, there was no home. The area has been razed to the ground. Ousmane is among four women NPR spoke with about their return to Gaza. The UN says less than 300 people have been allowed back into the territory since the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza opened two weeks ago. Those who have returned describe a terrifying journey of Israeli checkpoints, militias and being questioned at every turn.

2:17That's Huda Abu Abid, a 57-year-old grandmother with a heart condition. She says entering Gaza felt like entering a prison. She says much of what she was carrying back was taken from her at the border crossing in Gaza by Palestinian authorities' officials who are monitored by civilian border guards from the European Union.

2:47Abu Abid says her medicine, a new mobile phone, headphones she had brought for her granddaughter, perfume, creams, and even her water bottle were confiscated. Others interviewed by NPR also confirmed that they were only allowed to bring one bag of clothes into Gaza. Toys were taken from children. When asked by NPR, the EU mission said the list of items authorized to enter Gaza are part of an agreement between Israel, Egypt, and Palestinians. They did not, however, explain why eyedrops and children toys were among the items taken. The women interviewed by NPR say after passing through the EU monitored crossing, they were taken in a bus escorted by two military jeeps that was stopped by a Palestinian militia known as Abu Shabab.

3:37This militia is armed by Israel to fight Hamas.

3:47Abu Abid says the militia's male and female recruits handed the Palestinian women on the bus over to the Israeli for interrogation at a military facility in southern Gaza. There, Abu Abid and her 31-year-old daughter, Rutana al-Rigib, say they were blindfolded, handcuffed and interrogated by masked Israeli soldiers about ties to Hamas. Here is al-Rigib, a mother of four, explaining.

4:17She says she was asked who had pressured her to return to Gaza. She and others interviewed by NPR say the Israeli military also encouraged them to leave Gaza for good.

4:33El-Ragib and others say the military didn't tell them a specific country they could go to, but told them there was no life in Gaza anymore. In a statement to NPR, the Israeli military denied any incidents of inappropriate conduct, mistreatment, apprehensions or confiscation of personal items at its screening facility in southern Gaza. For a regab who was reunited with her four kids in Gaza after a year apart, nothing compares with the feeling of being home.

5:11Even if home is a makeshift tent with no guarantee of what tomorrow may bring. Anas Baba, NPR News, Mawasi Gaza.

5:25That's the State of the World from NPR. Thanks for listening.