What is it like to come home and find your entire city destroyed?

Deir al-Balah: Stunned Palestinians found their hometown unrecognizable as they filtered through to salvage what they could from the vast destruction left by Israeli troops who withdrew from Khan Younis in southern Gaza after months of fighting and bombing.

Thousands of buildings have been destroyed or damaged, and this week families have tried to find their homes along streets razed to the ground, surrounded by landscapes of rubble and rubble that were once apartment blocks and businesses. Elsewhere, buildings were still standing, but they were gutted, charred, and hole-ridden husks, with partially shattered upper floors hanging precipitously.

The scenes in Khan Younis underscored what has been one of the world’s most destructive and deadly military attacks in recent decades, leaving most of the small coastal territory uninhabitable for its 2.3 million people. The scene also foreshadowed what is likely to happen in Rafah, Gaza’s southernmost city, where half of Gaza’s uprooted population is now crowded, if Israel goes ahead with its plans to invade.

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