Israeli troops watch warily as Gaza residents join slow march south

Thousands of Palestinians, carrying just a few possessions, move slowly through rubble of city they once called home

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At about 4pm on Wednesday, a column of men, women and children moved slowly through the rubble of the city they had once called home. Above them the blue sky was streaked with smoke. To one side the skeletal remains of houses, stripped by shellfire and bullets to their bare concrete bones. To the other, the bulldozed berms from where men of the Israeli Defence Force's Jerusalem brigade watched warily.

Automatic fire cracked some way away. A thudding bang signalled something nearer and bigger. Drones buzzed in the distance. The file moved forwards in fits and starts.