Returning Palestinians can't recognise Khan Younis destroyed by Israel

Stunned Palestinians found their home city unrecognisable as they filtered in to salvage what they could from the vast destruction left by Israeli troops who withdrew from southern Gaza's Khan Younis a day earlier after months of fighting and bombardment.

With thousands of buildings destroyed or damaged, families tried to find their homes along streets bulldozed down to the dirt, surrounded by landscapes 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 scenes in Khan Younis underscored what has been one of the world’s most destructive and lethal military assaults in recent decades, leaving most of the tiny 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 up-rooted population is now crowded if Israel goes ahead with plans to invade it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu escalated his pledge to take the offensive to Rafah, declaring in a video statement on Monday, “It will happen. There is a date,” without elaborating. He spoke as Israeli negotiators were in Cairo discussing international efforts to broker a cease-fire deal with Hamas.

'Where is my home?'

Magdy Abu Sahrour was shocked to see his house in Khan Younis flattened.

“I couldn’t find my home because of all the destruction,” he said, standing in front of the rubble. “Where is my place, where is my home?”

Many of the thousands who came to Khan Younis by foot and on donkey carts on Monday have been sheltering in Rafah. The withdrawal gave them a chance to see the wreckage of their homes and retrieve some possessions. But with the city now unlivable, they said they had little immediate chance to return.

An estimated 55 percent of the buildings in the Khan Younis area – around 45,000 buildings – have been destroyed or damaged, according to Corey Scher of the City University of New York and Jamon Van Den Hoek of Oregon State University, two mapping experts who have been using satellite imagery to track destruction.

"Where do I sleep? Where do I go?” Heba Sahloul’s aged mother sobbed in despair, sitting amid the rubble of the family's living room.

Her daughters searched for anything they could take with them. The room’s walls were blown away and the floor was piled with chunks of concrete, slabs of the ceiling and broken countertops. Only the columns pai nted pink gave any sign it had once been their home.

Sahloul said Israeli troops ordered them to leave during the fighting. “We left all our things here, and we went out with only our clothes,” she said. Her father was killed earlier in the assault, leaving Sahloul, her sisters and her mother. “We are only six women at home and we do not know where to go,” Sahloul said.

One woman clambered over collapsed concrete slabs atop a mountain of her home's wreckage. Her son crawled on all fours into a hollow under the rubble and twisted rebar, clearing away concrete blocks.

“There are no words to describe the pain inside me,” the woman said, her voice breaking. “Our memories, our dreams, our childhood here, our family … It’s all gone.” The woman, who identified herself only by her first name, Hanan, put a few items they found into a backpack, including a plastic red flower.