Palestinians Return to Gaza After Ceasefire, Find Devastation and Displacement
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip – While some Palestinians returning to the Gaza Strip this week after two years of war showed joy on their faces, many found their old neighborhoods unrecognizable due to relentless fighting that reduced numerous buildings to rubble.
Following a historic ceasefire agreement enacted on Monday, tens of thousands of displaced residents, along with nearly 2,000 Palestinians released from Israeli prisons, made their way back to Gaza—only to find themselves homeless.
“Of course, I was happy about being released, but not happy about being displaced with no safety in place, no life necessities,” said 23-year-old Abdullah Wa’el Mohammed Farhan, one of the former Palestinian prisoners freed on Monday as part of a ceasefire deal brokered by President Donald Trump.
Standing outside a tent in Khan Younis, where he and his family are currently living, Farhan told ABC News that he was imprisoned for 20 months as the war with Israel raged on. He described how, while detained, he and other Palestinian prisoners were “completely isolated from the world.”
“When I was told about my release, I didn’t believe it because more than once [Israeli authorities] told us about our release and moved us from one prison to another while being tortured and beaten,” Farhan said.
ABC News has contacted the Israel Defense Forces and the Israel Prison Service regarding allegations from Farhan and other released prisoners about being tortured and subjected to starvation while incarcerated, but has yet to receive a response.
Abdullah’s sister, 21-year-old Samaher Farhan, spoke to ABC News about their reunion. While thankful to be together again, she expressed sadness that her brother had to return to a community ravaged by war.
“When I saw Abdullah yesterday, it was mixed feelings of happiness and sadness because of how he looked before he went to prison and how he looked now,” Samaher said. She hopes to resume living in their home, which remains intact but is located in an area currently uninhabitable.
“For the time being, we are living in a tent,” she added. “We felt bad that this is not a worthy welcoming of a prisoner. How can he come out to a worn tent? So, it was a sad feeling. I even tried not to meet him or sit with him for a long time because the situation is dire in this worn tent.”
She recalled that when Abdullah was taken prisoner, their neighborhood was still in good shape. “It was barely 1% of the destruction we have now,” she said.
Devastation Across Gaza
The United Nations and other organizations have reported that there is no safe place left in the Gaza Strip, which measures approximately 25 miles long by 7.5 miles wide. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have designated most of the war-torn territory as a “no-go zone,” issuing evacuation orders for civilians, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
A damage assessment by the U.N. Satellite Centre found that 83% of all structures in Gaza City—the capital of the Palestinian territory—have been damaged. The assessment identified at least 17,734 structures destroyed, representing about 43% of the total number of damaged structures.
In a report issued on Tuesday, the U.N. estimated that it will cost approximately $70 billion to reconstruct Gaza.
Human Toll of the Conflict
According to the Palestinian Ministry of Health’s latest report on Wednesday, nearly 68,000 Palestinians were killed in the Gaza Strip during the war. The conflict began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas terrorists launched a surprise attack on Israel, killing more than 1,200 people and taking about 250 others hostage.
The final 20 living Israeli hostages were released by Hamas on Monday as part of the ceasefire deal.
Voices from Those Released
Shadi Abu Sido, a Palestinian photojournalist released from Israeli prison on Monday, expressed shock at the widespread devastation in Gaza since his detention in March 2024.
“I entered Gaza and found it to be like a scene of Judgment Day,” Sido said in a video testimony. “This is not Gaza. Where is the world?”
He shared that while in prison, an Israeli officer told him his wife and two children had been killed during the war. However, upon returning to his home in Khan Younis, he discovered they were alive.
“I heard her voice, I heard my children—I was astonished. It cannot be explained, they were alive,” Sido told Reuters.
For another Palestinian prisoner, the joy of being freed was quickly replaced by heartbreak upon learning that his three children—aged 2, 5, and 8—had died in the conflict.
In a video testimony, the man, whose name has not been released, is seen falling to his knees and sobbing. Holding a bracelet in his hand, he explained that he had made it in prison and planned to give it to his youngest daughter.
“I made this for my daughter, whose birthday was supposed to be in five days,” he said in the video.
ABC News’ Bill Hutchinson contributed to this report.