People continue to stream back into Gaza City in the wake of the temporary ceasefire across the Strip, with some 500,000 reportedly returning so far, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) reported on Thursday.
Tess Ingram, Communications Manager for UNICEF Middle East and North Africa, is in the northern city where she witnessed people moving through the streets on donkeys, in cars, or by bicycle.
"There's a lot of people with shovels trying to remove rubble, and of course you can see people setting up makeshift shelters or tents on what I'm guessing used to be their homes," she told UN News.
Hope and heartache
Ms. Ingram believes that many people were filled with hope and joy as they were finally able to come back to the place they had hoped to return to for more than 15 months.
"But now, as I speak to people, I think that joy is being replaced somewhat by a sense of heaviness as they discover the reality of what has happened here in Gaza City," she said.
"They were hoping to return to a home that is not there, or to a loved one who has been killed, and I think that that heaviness is really sinking in for people."
