![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/09/img_9148_slide-eb180b1c240d066c4b17799c5566aae1fd0345ed-s1100-c50.jpeg)
Palestinians returned to Khan Younis to survey the damage to their homes after Israeli forces withdrew from the city after four months of fighting with Hamas.
Anas Baba
Hide caption
Caption transition
Anas Baba
![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/09/img_9148_slide-eb180b1c240d066c4b17799c5566aae1fd0345ed-s1200.jpeg)
Palestinians returned to Khan Younis to survey the damage to their homes after Israeli forces withdrew from the city after four months of fighting with Hamas.
Anas Baba
KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip — Umm Ahmad Il-Sibaee stands quietly between gray cement hills, holding his wallet. Her damaged building, one of the few remaining, is blocked by piles of rubble.
She begins to cry, saying, “I can't express my feelings to you.”
Israel withdrew its troops from the city on Sunday after four months of intense fighting with Hamas, the longest ground war of the Gaza war. Now Palestinians are returning to find their city completely destroyed.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said Israel had disbanded Hamas, the military wing operating in the region. With the withdrawal, Israel withdrew most of its ground forces from the Gaza Strip.
Israeli military reporters said the troop withdrawal would allow civilians who fled to Rafah, the southernmost city in the Gaza Strip, to return. But most have nowhere to return.
![Israel withdraws some troops from southern Gaza six months after October 7 attack](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/07/gettyimages-2139227649_sq-a2a3b32119c31c15189aa641c70be69b6ab5832c-s100.jpg)
An initial assessment by the Khan Younis municipality estimates that more than 80% of Khan Younis' buildings have been destroyed and most of the remainder is uninhabitable.
“The level of destruction in Khan Younis is beyond words,” said Saeb Laqan, a municipality spokesman. “Most of the displaced people who returned today were forced to return to their shelters in Rafah due to the severity of the disaster.”
asking for what they can
Many Palestinians returned to the city to gather their belongings, fearful of looters. They retrieved sofas, plastic chairs and clothes from the house and took them to a tent to the south.
![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/09/img_9448_slide-73d48379c5cc1f900027dd3ae68f290728b4e6c5-s1100-c50.jpeg)
Palestinians driven out of Khan Younis returned to retrieve their belongings from their homes after Israel withdrew.
Anas Baba
Hide caption
Caption transition
Anas Baba
![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/09/img_9448_slide-73d48379c5cc1f900027dd3ae68f290728b4e6c5-s1200.jpeg)
Palestinians driven out of Khan Younis returned to retrieve their belongings from their homes after the Israeli withdrawal.
Anas Baba
A man tried to remove a metal bar he had attached to his door to deter intruders when he was evacuating his home a few months ago.
A young boy was carrying a bundle of tall wooden beams on his back to use as firewood.
One group of men compared the mass destruction to the wars in Syria and Ukraine. Barquq Fort, a historic building from the 14th century, was partially damaged.
“There is no Khan Younis.” said Aya Al-Akkad, who lived in a tent in Rafah and returned to Khan Younis to see what had become of her home. “Damn Sinwar.”
Khan Younis is the home city of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who launched the October 7 attack on Israel that sparked the war.
![Photo: Israel and Gaza Strip, 6 months of war](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/05/qasr-al-basha_sq-9f8923190f9dfb53e8cb601e74de64b8534f754c-s100.jpg)
“Oh my god, we are destroyed, our house is destroyed.” Sami Irbaya exclaims in an impromptu lament as he rides his bike along a concrete block-paved street.
“Oh Hamas, dance like a bride and have fun,” he shouted, mocking Hamas’ destruction.
Israeli soldiers spray-painted graffiti in Hebrew on the outside of destroyed houses. Some left messages with their girlfriends' names. “Noah, now everyone knows that you are the love of my life.” A Hebrew message is read from the balcony of a destroyed building.
![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/09/img_3242_slide-fe107e66e013cf8bbc0ab3560c73f8f55228939f-s1100-c50.jpeg)
Palestinians who returned to Khan Younis on April 8 suffered extensive damage after Israeli forces withdrew from the city after four months of fighting with Hamas there. Many people had to return to their tent shelters in Rafah after seeing the extent of damage to their homes.
Anas Baba
Hide caption
Caption transition
Anas Baba
![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/09/img_3242_slide-fe107e66e013cf8bbc0ab3560c73f8f55228939f-s1200.jpeg)
Palestinians who returned to Khan Younis on April 8 suffered extensive damage after Israeli forces withdrew from the city after four months of fighting with Hamas there. Many people had to return to their tent shelters in Rafah after seeing the extent of damage to their homes.
Anas Baba
The Israeli military said it would take “directive action” against soldiers whose actions “deviate from what is expected,” but did not say whether the graffiti message violated military protocol. Israeli media reported that soldiers in the Gaza Strip had been ordered not to write graffiti messages.
Searching for my son's body
The city's main hospital, Nasser Medical Complex, is currently empty. Israeli soldiers wrote graffiti on the walls of hospital rooms. Some of the writing appears to have been intended to alert other soldiers that the room had been searched.
The hospital yard is littered with stretchers. A medical building in the complex, with the Hebrew name 'Moshe' plastered across its front, burned down.
In the courtyard, Umm Mohammed Qanita is digging through the sand with his hands, looking for the body of his 17-year-old son, Mohammed.
She said she was hiding in the hospital courtyard with her family when the fighting began last December. She was shot dead on the hospital grounds as her son went to buy something.
She said she buried him among the palm and olive trees and ran away.
![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/10/img_3247_slide-0f3a1e00063985bbfac593bf1d0c513b69218e8a-s1100-c50.jpeg)
A view of the Khan Younis building destroyed in the Israeli attack.
NPR's Anas Baba
Hide caption
Caption transition
NPR's Anas Baba
![](https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2024/04/10/img_3247_slide-0f3a1e00063985bbfac593bf1d0c513b69218e8a-s1200.jpeg)
A view of the Khan Younis building destroyed in the Israeli attack.
NPR's Anas Baba
She returned to find the uprooted trees. She was afraid that her son's body would be dug up. The Israeli military dug up graves to find the remains of Israeli prisoners and returned the bodies of Palestinians to Gaza throughout the war. Over the weekend, Israel said it had recovered the body of a civilian captive from the city.
“There was a palm tree here and people went and tore it down.” My mother cries. “My beloved Muhammad, where have you gone? I have come for you.”
Anas Baba received a report from Khan Younis. Daniel Estrin reported from Tel Aviv. Abu Bakr Bashir contributed reporting from London. Jawad Rizkallah contributed to this story from Beirut.