On Tuesday morning, a 72-hour cease-fire brokered by Egypt took effect in Gaza after nearly a month of fighting, broken only by brief humanitarian ceasefires of a few hours, and one failed attempt at a longer truce that broke almost as soon as it began. Israel pulled back its troops and Israeli officials said that all military forces had left the area Tuesday. According to the New York Times, as of Aug. 5, 67 Israelis had been killed. More than 1,800 Palestinians, most of them civilians, also lost their lives in the fighting.
The intense fighting started after Israel launched its offensive against Hamas on July 8, in response to a series of rockets fired on Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza. Israel's subsequent strikes have demolished swaths of Gaza, leaving little behind but rubble and ruins. The U.N. reports that of Gaza's 1.8 million people, some 260,000 are still displaced. After the cease-fire was declared, Palestinians returned to their neighborhoods in Gaza to see what was left of their homes and businesses and to look for unaccounted for members of their families.
Above, two Palestinian men look through the rubble for relatives.
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Residents of the Shejaiya neighborhood comb over the rubble of their destroyed houses.
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A Palestinian woman and her children walk through the wreckage of a destroyed building.
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A Palestinian man leads a flock of sheep past destroyed buildings in the northern Gaza Strip.
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Rescue workers remove the body a Palestinian man from under the rubble in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.
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Palestinian children make their way though the rubble of destroyed buildings as they return home in the northern Gaza Strip.
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The Aug. 5 ceasefire allowed for a temporary peace in Gaza City, which many Palestinians used to look through the rubble of destroyed buildings for their belongings and bodies of loved ones.
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Palestinians inspect the destroyed buildings during the 72-hour humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza Strip.
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A Palestinian man inspects destroyed houses and the area where the al-Wafaa rehabilitation hospital used to stand in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.
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Palestinian fishermen inspect of the damage at their warehouse in the port of Gaza City.
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Palestinian children are seen amid destroyed armored vehicles during the 72-hour humanitarian truce in Khan Younis, Gaza.
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Palestinians inspect their destroyed houses in the Shejaiya neighborhood of Gaza City.
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A displaced Palestinian family returns home amid the destruction in part of the northern Beit Hanun district of Gaza Strip.
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