Paul Adams
BBC diplomatic correspondent
Watch: Belongings in hand, thousands of Gazans begin journey home
On foot or by car, the trek home has begun.
For Gazans displaced for the 15 months, the distance is not far – the Gaza Strip is a tiny place – but today’s journey is just the start of a desperately uncertain future for this war-ravaged place.
The scale of the looming humanitarian challenge is hard to comprehend.
“There are no facilities, no services, no electricity, no water, no infrastructure,” Gazan journalist Ghada el-Kurd said, as she prepared to make her own way back north from Deir el-Balah, where she’s been sheltering for months.
“We have to re-establish again from the beginning, from zero.”
The immediate needs – food and shelter – are starting to be addressed.
“Aid is flowing at levels we’ve not seen since the start of the conflict,” Sam Rose from the UN’s Palestinian refugee agency, Unrwa, said.
“So we’re able to meet the bare minimums in terms of food, water, blankets, hygiene items. But beyond that, this is a long, long road.”
Finding shelter in the apocalyptic ruins of Gaza is going to be the first of many huge, long-term challenges.
As many as 700,000 people fled from Gaza City and the surrounding areas during the early weeks of the war. An unknown number, perhaps as many as 400,000, stayed put.
Some of the areas left behind were obliterated, while others have just about survived.
The UN estimates that around 70% of the Gaza Strip’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed since October 2023, with much of the worst destruction in the north.
Jabaliya, home to a pre-war population of 200,000, about half of whom lived in one of Gaza’s oldest and biggest refugee camps, has been virtually destroyed.
It is clear that for many people, the days of living in a tent are far from over.
Gaza’s Hamas-run Government Media Office has put ou
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