Palestinians returning to Gaza City over the weekend to see what is left of their homes are grappling with the scale of destruction.

The Gaza ceasefire has held as tens of thousands of Palestinians returned to their neighbourhoods.

Gaza City was the focus of Israel’s military offensive in the weeks before the ceasefire.

The scale of Gaza’s destruction will become clearer if the truce holds.

Already, the United Nations Satellite Center estimated that 83% of all structures in Gaza City had been destroyed or had some damage by late September.

It has said around 78% of structures across all of Gaza had been destroyed or sustained damage by July.

"They stayed silent until everything was gone then they went to work on reconciliation... They should have saved us before instead of this destruction and ruin. What is left in Gaza? There is nothing left in it except for its dead people. We are dead, a soul without a body," said E'etedal Lotfy, a Palestinian woman in Gaza City.

"How many years before they build our homes? In my home, there were 120 people living," she added.

Some 61 million tons of debris will need to be cleared across the territory — the equivalent of 25 Eiffel Towers by volume, according to the United Nations Environment Program.

Rebuilding Gaza will require more than $50 billion, the World Bank has estimated.

The territory’s over 2 million Palestinians hope to begin now, one blanket or beam at a time.

"No life, no water, nothing. Total destruction, a whole block, a whole neighbourhood. The Manara neighbourhood is gone, destroyed without fault," said Aziz Ahmed, another displaced Palestinian.

A bulldozer was seen in the area next to the wreckage and some people were travelling on foot with some of their belongings in bags.

The sun set behind the piles of debris and gutted buildings that filled the horizon as people from the area tried to find their homes in the web of mangled wire and broken concrete.

The war began when Hamas-led militants stormed into Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking about 250 hostage.

In Israel’s ensuing offensive, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry, which doesn’t differentiate between civilians and combatants but says around half the deaths were women and children. The ministry is part of the Hamas-run government, and the U.N. and many independent experts consider its figures to be the most reliable estimate of wartime casualties.

The war has also triggered other conflicts in the region, sparked worldwide protests and led to allegations of genocide that Israel denies.

AP video shot by Abdel Kareem Hana