My mother, father, and brothers are all buried in one grave,” 12-year-old Alma Ja’arour said. "There is no home to return to, no one waiting for me.”

After a ceasefire deal paused 15 months of war in Gaza, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians returned to the rubble of their homes.

Nedal Hamdouna, a Palestinian journalist, has been displaced seven times by the 15-month war in Gaza. Here, he describes the joy he felt in being able to return to Beit Lahia in the north of the strip

During a pause in fighting between Israel and Hamas, with fragile hopes for an end to the war, relief is soon weighed down by sorrow.

Despite the extreme hardships they have experienced and the long road ahead, children in Gaza are holding fast to their dreams of a better future.

Crowds of Palestinians fill Gaza’s main coastal road as they stream north. With their belongings on their backs, they smile, hug and sing, overjoyed at the prospect of returning home after more than a year of war.

With a ceasefire agreement pausing the war between Israel and Hamas, Israeli troops have withdrawn from Gaza city centers. For the first time in eight months, NPR got a glimpse of Rafah this week.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians returning to their homes in northern Gaza have passed through checkpoints in a central zone of the enclave where scanners check for concealed weapons being taken in cars and vehicles.

The Israel-Hamas war has devastated the Gaza Strip. Satellite photos offer some sense of the destruction in the territory.

Tens of thousands of displaced Palestinians began returning home to northern Gaza on Monday, bracing for what awaits them in a region that has been reduced to rubble by months of brutal bombardment and fighting.

Tens of thousands of Palestinians are streaming into Gaza's most heavily destroyed area after Israel lifted its closure of the north.