"When the Gaza ceasefire took effect a week ago, 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, mostly trudging on foot, carrying the few possessions they had salvaged from one displacement after another."
"What the returnees found on arrival was complete desolation. Large swaths of the north had simply been flattened. Their homes and neighbourhoods were no longer recognisable. Their communities had been erased. The sheer scale of demolition left families with an awful dilemma: stay and seek shelter in the shattered stumps of their former homes, or return to the tented camps in the south where they had a better chance of finding food and water."
"I had hoped to return and find my home standing, but what I found was quite the opposite. I couldn't even recognise the area. Everything was levelled to the ground, Suhair al-Absi, a 50-year-old mother of seven, said on reaching the Sheikh Radwan district on the north side of Gaza City. I couldn't identify the remains of my house because the rubble of everyone's homes is all mixed together. The destruction here is beyond imagination, something the mind cannot grasp."
When the Gaza ceasefire began, tens of thousands of Palestinians moved from southern camps back toward Gaza City and nearby areas. Many returned after being ordered out a month earlier and traveled north along the coastal road, often on foot with only a few salvaged possessions. Large areas in the north lay completely flattened; homes, neighborhoods and communities were unrecognisable or erased. Families faced the choice of sheltering among shattered stumps of former homes or returning to southern tented camps for better access to food and water. Uncertainty about the truce's duration and prospects for lasting peace complicated return decisions.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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