Ruined: Palestinians returning to Khan Younis after Israeli withdrawal fi nd an unrecognizable city

Gaza Strip: Streams of Palestinians filed into the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis on Monday to salvage what they could from the destruction left in the wake of Israel’s offensive, a day after the Israeli military announced it was withdrawing troops from the area.

Those returning found their hometown, Gaza’s second largest city, unrecognizable, with thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged.

Men, women and children went down streets bulldozed into stretches of dirt, searching for their homes among fields of rubble and debris that were once blocks of apartments and businesses.

On other blocks, buildings still stood but were gutted shells, scorched and full of holes, with partially shattered upper floors dangling off precipitously.

The destruction in Khan Younis underscored what has been one of world’s most destructive military assaults in recent decades, which has left vast swaths of the coastal territory unlivable for its 2.3 million people.

It also portended what is likely to happen in Gaza’s southernmost town of Rafah, where half of Gaza’s uprooted population is now crowded, if Israel goes ahead with plans to invade it. (AP)