in Cairo and Jerusalem
Moments after returning to her home in an affluent neighborhood in northern Gaza, 44-year-old Sabrine Zanoun said she was overcome with a mix of emotions.
“We are happy to see our family again… [but] It’s also so sad it makes you cry – the destroyed houses, the ruins,” she told the BBC.
“People used to come here just to walk for the beautiful scenery. Now it’s mostly ruins.”
Sabrine was one of hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians who returned to their homes or the ruins of their place in the northern Gaza Strip on Monday.
The mass return comes a week after a ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hamas aimed at permanently ending the war that began more than 15 months ago.
Like others in Gaza, she was displaced several times during the war, but most recently to the central city of Deir al-Balah.
She joined a “flood of people” traveling on foot along the coastal al-Rashid Street – a route opened to displaced Gazans early Monday morning.
A security official in Gaza told the AFP news agency that more than 200,000 people crossed north of the Strip on foot in a two-hour period.
The Palestinians spoke to the BBC as they traveled.
“It was so long and tiring,” said 24-year-old Israa Shaheen, shortly after arriving in Gaza.
“Up until the middle of the road people were happy and singing and stuff, but then when it took a long time people got frustrated. Then we got to a sign that said ‘Welcome to Gaza’ and a lot of Palestinian flags and people started to feel again joy,” she said.
Others traveled by car on a different route.
“There are thousands of people here. They are filling the whole road… we are very happy, but I am also sad because I know I will reach Gaza City, but my home is no longer there,” 42-year-old Wafaa Hassouna said on the phone as she approached the checkpoint point.
When people arrived at their destinations, they spoke of their shock at what was left standing in their communities.
Mohammed Imad Al-Din, a barber who had been waiting at the checkpoint, returned to find his home destroyed and his salon looted and damaged in a nearby Israeli raid.
Lubna Nassar waited with her two daughters and son to be reunited with her husband. But while he survived, their home was gone.
“The warmth of the reunion was overshadowed by the bitter reality – we no longer have a home, so we moved from a tent in the south to a tent in the north,” she said.
Others are still waiting to return home or deciding on their next steps.
One man said he would have “run north like I’m in a race” if he hadn’t had his pregnant wife and young daughter with him. Instead, they hoped that the big crowds would pass and they would slowly make their way home. He said they expected to find much of their neighborhood razed to the ground.
“We hope that this war will end and that we will rebuild everything that was destroyed,” he said.
Another said his brother told him he wasn’t coming back for now. He “called and said… the houses have been demolished to the ground. People are sleeping on the streets and no one is helping them.”
In the affluent neighborhood of Tel al-Hawa, Sabrine said she was grateful to be back with her family and in a home that still exists.
“It’s mostly rubble and destruction. Anyone who finds their house still standing, or even just a room, should consider themselves lucky,” she said.
Additional reporting by Muath Al-Khatib
