Thousands of Palestinians streamed back toward northern Gaza on Friday after a U.S.-brokered ceasefire took hold, picking through the wreckage of neighbourhoods levelled by two years of war. Joy at the chance to go home quickly collided with the scale of destruction — and the question of how to rebuild.
Crowds moved along the coastal road on foot, bicycles, trucks and donkey carts toward the largely devastated north. Nearly all of Gaza’s 2.2 million people were displaced during the fighting, which killed tens of thousands and turned whole districts to rubble.
“Of course there are no homes — they’ve been destroyed — but we are happy just to return to where our homes were, even over the rubble,” said Mahdi Saqla, 40, in a tented camp in central Gaza.
Mahira al-Ashi, formerly of Gaza City, said she barely slept awaiting word the road would open. “By God, when they opened the road, I was so happy to go back,” she said.
Reality set in as families reached once-familiar streets now buried under concrete and twisted metal. In Khan Younis, Ahmed al-Brim pushed a bicycle stacked with salvaged wood past pancaked buildings. “We went to our area — it was exterminated,” he said. “We don’t know where we will go after that.”
Another resident, Muhannad al-Shawaf, said a three-minute walk now took over an hour as he clambered over debris. “The destruction is huge and indescribable… not suitable for living.”
Even those who stayed away questioned what the truce would mean. “Okay, it is over — then what? There is no home I can go back to,” said Balqees, a mother of five from Gaza City sheltering in Deir al-Balah. “They have destroyed everything… Am I supposed to be happy? No, I am not.”
“Laughter has vanished and tears have run dry,” said Mustafa Ibrahim, a Gaza City activist also in Deir al-Balah. “The people of Gaza are lost… searching for a distant future.”
Some ventured north before the ceasefire took effect. Ismail Zayda, 40, said he was astonished to find his house in Sheikh Radwan still standing amid a “sea of rubble”. “Thank God, my house is still standing. But… entire districts are gone,” he said.
The war began in October 2023 when Hamas-led gunmen attacked Israel, killing about 1,200 people and seizing 251 hostages. Israel’s subsequent air and ground campaign killed more than 67,000 people, according to Gaza health authorities, and left a humanitarian crisis and vast swathes of the enclave in ruins.