Palestinians return to destroyed homes in Khan Younis after Israeli withdrawal

People find landscape in southern Gaza city marked by shattered buildings and stench of death from under the rubble

• Civilians return to Khan Younis - in pictures

Thousands of Palestinians, exhausted by six months of unrelenting war and multiple displacements, trudged back to the devastated city of Khan Younis on Monday, a day after Israel's unexpected withdrawal of its forces from southern Gaza.

With many making the journey on foot from nearby Rafah, they struggled to find homes that had been atomised by the force of the bombardment in neighbourhoods heavy with the smell of death, where family and neighbours worked to dig out bodies long buried in the rubble.