Thousands of displaced Palestinians returned across Gaza’s wasteland on Friday, heading back to the ruins of their abandoned homes after a ceasefire brokered by United States President Donald Trump, under which Israeli forces withdrew as part of an agreement to end the fighting.
Reuters reported a huge column of people filing on foot north along the coastal road towards Gaza City, the enclave’s largest urban centre, which had been under attack just days earlier in one of Israel’s biggest offensives of the war.
Quoting Palestinians returning home, Reuters recorded Ismail Zayda, 40, as saying: “Thank God my house is still standing in the Sheikh Radwan district of Gaza City. But the place is destroyed, my neighbours’ houses are destroyed, entire districts have gone.”
Elsewhere, people picked their way through the dusty moonscape that was once Khan Younis, Gaza’s second largest city, which Israeli forces razed earlier this year. Most walked in silence.
