SEAToday.com, Gaza Strip-Palestinians return to their home city in Khan Younis on Monday (4/8) stunned to see it ruined, unrecognizable. Israeli troops who withdrew from Khan Younis on Sunday (4/7) after months of fighting and bombardment, left a vast destruction.

As reported by AP, buildings that were once blocks of apartments and businesses are destroyed or damaged. Families tried to find their homes along streets bulldozed down. On other part, some buildings still stood, they were gutted shells, scorched and full of holes, with partially shattered upper floors dangling off precipitously.

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?”

Israel sent troops into Khan Younis in December, part of its blistering ground offensive that came in response to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack and hostage-taking into southern Israel. Its withdrawal brought Israeli troops in the tiny coastal enclave to one of the lowest since the war began.

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.

In recent decades, the scenes in Khan Younis underscored what has been one of the world’s most destructive and lethal military assaults. Leaving most of the tiny coastal territory ruined and unliveable for its 2.3 million people.

It is also a portend of what might happen in Rafah, Gaza's southernmost city, where half of Gaza's displaced population is now jostling if Israel goes ahead with its plans to invade the city.