'Everything is wiped out there is nothing to salvage'

Thousands of Palestinians are making the long march home to the north of the strip after the ceasefire deal - only to find ruins, reports Nedal Hamdouna from Gaza and Bel Trew.

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Stretching out to the horizon in front of Palestinian father of two Said is a breathtaking level of destruction few can imagine. The apartment buildings in this north Gaza city are so eviscerated that they have been reduced to dust. It is hard to even call it rubble it looks like ash.

"This is the location of our home. Nothing is visible," Said says, pointing to an indiscernible mountain of grey, with a deadness in his voice. "Wiped out. Evaporated. It is as if there were never a house here at all." As soon as the US-brokered ceasefire between Israel and Hamas went into effect, Said, 34, was among the first to take the deadly risk of marching north to find his home. Displaced countless times since the start of Israel's two-year bombardment and siege on Gaza, he had hoped to at least recover some precious items, such as photos, from his home.

"When I came back today I expected my home to be a collapsed building that we could retrieve belongings from," he tells The Independent, sending videos and photos of the scene.

"But everything has been razed to the ground. There is nothing even to salvage, nothing is usable. Piles of rubble stretch as far as the eye can see."

This is Beit Lahia, in the far north of Gaza - one of the most heavily destroyed areas of the blasted, besieged enclave. From inside a Jordanian aid plane above Gaza, The Independent filmed the destruction wreaked on these exact neighbourhoods by Israeli forces. The entire area resembles Said's street: reduced to the bottom of an ashen fire pit.

More than 90 per cent of homes in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, the United Nations said earlier this year. A joint assessment by the UN, European Union and World Bank estimated it will cost more than $53bn to recover and rebuild the strip.