Hopes and ruins Shock as Gaza City residents return

Families who have made their way back from refugee camps in the south can barely recognise where their homes once stood

- By Seham Tantesh GAZA and Julian Borger

When the Gaza ceasefire took effect this month, tens of thousands of Palestinians began to move from the sprawling camps in the south back to their homes in Gaza City and the surrounding area. For most, it was a shocking and bitter homecoming.

A month after they had been ordered out by Israeli forces, Palestinians filled the coastal road north. It soon became a solid river of people carrying the few possessions they had salvaged from one displacement after another.

What the returnees found on arrival was complete desolation. Large swathes of the north had simply been flattened. Their homes and neighbourhoods were no longer recognisable. Their communities had been erased.