'Your body shivers from the scale of the destruction'

Bel Trew in Tel Aviv and Nedal Hamdouna in Gaza report on Palestinians walking back to the rubble of their homes and Israelis daring to hope for the release of all the hostages

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Clutching little more than a small rucksack or a metal can to hold water, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza began their long walk home yesterday after a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel came into effect.

Snaking along the coastal road heading north to Gaza City, those displaced countless times over two years of unprecedented bloodshed took to the road once more. Many carried nothing more than the clothes they were wearing as they dared to hope that a pause in the fighting might finally be more permanent.

Flanking the road were the ashen remains of buildings destroyed by relentless Israeli bombing. Mangled skylines loomed up around them, above piles of concrete rubble and twisted metal.

Among those travelling was Mahmoud Al-Kafarneh, 37, who headed home to northern Gaza. Living displaced in a tent for so long, he risked the long road north to find shelter.

"Your body shivers from the scale of the destruction," he said. "I felt extremely happy, the feeling of returning to the place I have always loved to live in, the streets that I know and remember well, despite the destruction that befell them. But there is a more important reason for my happiness, which is that the sounds of violent shelling have stopped and the constant fear for my family and mother from the shelling has gone. We hope that the ceasefire will last permanently."

The mass movement of people started shortly after midday, when the Israeli government declared that the long-awaited ceasefire had started.