“It was so long and tiring,” said 24-year-old Izraa Shaheen, shortly after reaching Gaza City.
“Up until the middle of the road, people were happy and singing and things like that, but then when it took a long time, people got frustrated. Then we reached a sign that said, ‘Welcome to Gaza,’ and a lot of Palestinian flags. And people started to feel joy again.” she said.
Others made the journey by car on a different route.
“There are thousands of people here. They fill the whole road … we are very happy, but I am also sad that I know I will reach Gaza City, but my home is gone,” Wafaa Hassouna, 42, said by phone , as she approached the checkpoint.
When people reached their places, they spoke of their shock at what was left in their communities.
Mohammed Imad al-Din, a barber waiting at the checkpoint, returned to find his home destroyed and his salon looted and damaged by a nearby Israeli strike.
Lubna Nassar waited with her two daughters and son to be reunited with her husband. But while he survived, their house was gone.
“The warmth of the reunion was overshadowed by the bitter reality that we no longer have a home, so we moved from a tent in the south to a tent in the north,” she said.
