The withdrawal of Israeli ground troops from southern Gaza over the weekend allowed some Palestinians to return to the city of Khan Younis and check on their homes. But in the aftermath of a fierce, monthslong battle and Israeli bombings, some found only destruction.
“When I saw the scene I couldn’t handle it,” said Dr. Ahmad al-Farra, who went back on Sunday to find his family’s three-story villa reduced to a pile of rubble, surrounded by the few trees that were left standing in what was once a lush garden.
“I completely collapsed and nearly fainted,” he said in a phone call on Monday, adding that his wife and two teenage daughters burst into tears when they saw what was left of their home.
“I worked for 20 years to build this house,” said Dr. al-Farra, 54, who ran the pediatric ward at Nasser Hospital before the family fled south to Rafah in January. “You build a home corner by corner, stone by stone.”
“And in the end,” he added, “with a press of a button, it is reduced to rubble.”
The rest of Khan Younis was “unrecognizable,” Dr. al-Farra said. Most buildings and homes were completely demolished, partially destroyed or burned, and the streets had been bulldozed. “Khan Younis was annihilated like it’s World War II or even worse,” he said.
Dr. al-Farra said “many, many people” had returned to Khan Younis on Sunday. He soon realized that staying at his home was not a possibility. But like many other Gazans sheltering in Rafah, he said that he soon planned to move his family’s tent to somewhere in Khan Younis. He and others fear Israel’s pledge to send ground troops into Rafah in pursuit of Hamas’s leaders and fighters, an invasion that many believe will come after the end of the holy month of Ramadan this week.
“The dreams of an entire family have disappeared into the air,” said Dr. al-Farra. “Where will we go now? Will we spend the rest of our lives living in tents?”
Nima Abu Azoum, 45, said her family planned to return to Khan Younis from Rafah this week — a journey of about six miles that people are making on foot, on donkey carts or, in rare cases, by car. But she said that the long-awaited homecoming would not be what they had dreamed of since evacuating to Rafah early in the war.
Her nephews went to Khan Younis on Monday to ready the family’s homes for the return. But instead, she said, they found the homes destroyed and the body of their 21-year-old brother Nader buried under the rubble. He had refused to evacuate with them to Rafah.
“I don’t have a home anymore — it’s gone,” Ms. Abu Azoum said in a phone call on Monday. “And nothing is left of our neighborhood.”
Akram al-Satri, 47, who traveled from Rafah to check on his home on Monday, said very few houses were still intact in Khan Younis. Walking around the city was “extremely challenging,” because the streets were bulldozed and rubble was everywhere, he said in a phone call.
Mr. al-Satri added that some people had been able to pull the remains of loved ones out of collapsed homes, but could only recognize them from their clothes, as their bodies had decomposed.
