Palestinians Returning to Jabaliya in Northern Gaza Find Wide Devastation

Residents who returned to the northern Gaza town of Jabaliya on Friday had expected to find mass devastation but said they were still shocked by the level of ruin they saw after three weeks of an Israeli offensive on the dense, urban area.

“The destruction is indescribable,” said Mohammad Awais, who returned with his family to their home in Jabaliya on Friday. “Our minds aren’t able to comprehend what we’re seeing.”

He said he and his family walked along devastated roads for nearly an hour in the heat and saw that no vehicle could navigate streets blocked by piles of rubble from homes and shops that had been destroyed by the Israeli military.

As they walked, rescue workers passed, carrying the wounded and bodies of those killed on stretchers. Some bodies were found in the streets, others had been dug out and pulled from the rubble — already beginning to decompose, said Mr. Awais, a social media marketer.

“Even the ambulances can’t drive through them to transport the injured and martyrs,” he said of the streets in Jabaliya.

The Israeli military said on Friday that it had finished its offensive in eastern Jabaliya and withdrawn after recovering the bodies of seven hostages, killing hundreds of fighters and destroying several miles of an underground tunnel network.