Thousands of Palestinians Return to Gaza City to Find a Wasteland of Rubble

“There’s nothing left for them to destroy.”

Displaced Palestinians returning to Gaza City on October 10, 2025. (Screenshot of video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)

GAZA CITY—Nizar Daghmash, the 56-year-old head of the Daghmash family council, stood in front of the ruins of his family home in Gaza City on Friday after making the journey back to the north following a ceasefire that went to effect earlier that day at 12 p.m. His house was still standing but only barely—more of a broken concrete shell surrounded by rubble.

“As you can see, the scene speaks for itself,” Daghmash told Drop Site. “The stone, as a stone, has no material value to us. But the emotional value—these stones, we placed them one by one, me, my father, my brothers, and my sisters. A flood of memories runs through my mind now—not about the stones or the house itself, but because this house represents our history.”

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians returned to the north on Friday, making their way along Al-Rashid road. Like Daghmash, many had fled Gaza City following Israel’s brutal military offensive on the city that began in mid-August in a stated campaign of ethnic cleansing. They returned to find many of their neighborhoods unrecognizable.

Video of displaced Palestinians returning to north Gaza on Al-Rashid road on October 10, 2025. (Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)

“We fled under fire wearing only the robe you see on me. We left at night, my whole family and I. We didn’t take a single item from the house. I left just as I am now. I believe nearly all the people of Gaza are going through the same suffering—no shelter, no home, no housing, no clothing, no food or drink. We ended up in the streets—in the streets,” Daghmash said. “God willing, the war won’t come back after this. There’s nothing left for them to destroy. You can see that Gaza has been annihilated completely.”

The Israeli military pulled its troops back to lines agreed upon under the ceasefire deal that was signed by Palestinian factions on Wednesday evening and approved by the Israeli cabinet late Thursday night. The initial troop withdrawal line is well within Gaza, with the Israeli military still controlling 56% of the enclave. At least 17 Palestinians were killed by Israel over the previous 24 hours, according to Gaza’s ministry of health, and 71 wounded, bringing the confirmed toll over two years to over 67,200 dead and 169,961 injured. Untold thousands remain buried under the rubble. At least 116 bodies were recovered across Gaza on Friday, according to the health ministry, including 99 in Gaza City alone.

An Israeli military spokesperson issued several warnings to Palestinians on Friday not to come near Israeli troops. In the north, the spokesperson warned on X that approaching the areas of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahia, and Al-Shujaiya is “extremely dangerous.” In the south, he said it is “highly dangerous to approach the Rafah Crossing area, the Philadelphia Axis area, and all areas where forces are stationed in Khan Younis.” Along the coast, he said there is “significant danger in engaging in fishing, swimming, or diving, and we warn against entering the sea in the coming days.” Across Gaza, it is “forbidden to approach Israeli territories and the buffer zone,” he added.

Immediately after the ceasefire took hold on Friday, Al-Rashid road that runs along Gaza’s coastline was packed with men, women and children making the long trek north. They piled onto cars and trucks, bicycles, motorbikes, and motorized rickshaws. The majority made their way on foot carrying few belongings or nothing at all. The devastation along the way was total. When they reached Gaza City, they found neighborhoods turned into wastelands of rubble. In many areas, every structure was either demolished or barely standing and the streets were torn up by Israeli bulldozers and tanks. Sporadic fires burned close to the few trees still standing that were clinging to life.

Video of displaced Palestinians in Gaza City on October 10, 2025. (Video by Abdel Qader Sabbah.)

“You can see the devastation around you,” Omar Junaid, who was displaced from Jabaliya, told Drop Site. “Zarqah, Al-Nazha, and Al-Ghubari—all of these areas—including Jabaliya Al-Balad and Jabaliya Al-Nazla, have been completely wiped out.” He added, “As citizens of the north, we pray to Almighty God that people look upon us with compassion and that they start with the reconstruction of the northern Gaza Strip. Because without services, where are we supposed to live? Where can we go?”

Under the terms of the ceasefire agreement, Hamas has a 72-hour window to release the 20 living Israeli captives with the understanding that the bodies of dead captives could take more time to locate. Israel will release nearly 2,000 Palestinian captives—including 250 serving prison sentences and 1,700 detained from Gaza during the war—with the exchange expected to take place on Monday or Tuesday, according to President Donald Trump. The White House confirmed Trump will travel to Israel and Egypt, arriving in the region on Monday to sign the official ceasefire agreement.

While a deal was reached on “phase one” of a ceasefire, details of how the plan will advance beyond that remain murky. Senior Hamas negotiator Khalil al-Hayya said in a televised address on Thursday the U.S. and Arab mediators had provided guarantees on a permanent end to the war.

“We returned after hearing about the implementation of a truce that will lead to a permanent end to the war in the Gaza Strip,” Saed Abdel Aal told Drop Site as sat on the rubble of his home in Gaza City. “We came back to our homes to explore what had become of them, and we found that ruin had surrounded everything.” He added, “Nothing remains for us except memories amid the rubble. Everything is destroyed: neighborhoods, infrastructure, sanitation systems. There are no means of life left. Streets and houses have been completely destroyed, sadly. There are the dead and the wounded. Everything was systematically obliterated.”

Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu threatened a return to the genocide, saying in an address on Friday that “Hamas will be disarmed and Gaza will be demilitarized … If this is achieved the easy way, so much the better. And if not, it will be achieved the hard way.”

Along with the rubble and buried bodies are thousands of unexploded munitions dropped by Israel. In a statement on Friday, Gaza’s police force warned people “to be extremely cautious and vigilant when returning to their homes and residential areas for the presence of suspicious objects, hazardous waste, and unexploded bombs.”

Under the agreement, five border crossings are expected to reopen, including the Rafah crossing between Gaza and Egypt. The World Food Program said it expects about 600 aid trucks to enter Gaza daily in the coming days. Israel’s months-long siege and starvation campaign has triggered a famine in Gaza, with at least 463 Palestinians, including 157 children, dying of starvation and malnutrition.

Over the past two years of Israel’s genocidal assault, 92% of residential buildings in Gaza and over 500 schools, along with every university, have been damaged or destroyed. Only 1.5% of cropland is still accessible and suitable for cultivation. Nearly every Palestinian in Gaza—95% of the population—has been displaced, most of them multiple times.

“We lack the basic necessities of life. We have no food, we have many wounded, many injured, many dead,” Abdel Aal said. “We need everything, all the essentials of life. There is nothing here that can be called life. We remain alive, struggling and enduring only for the sake of survival—nothing more. We have nothing.”

Drop Site News Middle East Research Fellow Jawa Ahmad contributed to this report.