“The road is long and difficult, there’s no food or water,” said Alaa Saleh, a schoolteacher who fled Gaza City with his wife and six children to Khan Younis in the south.
“I left my family behind and started walking north. Thousands around me are struggling. Hiring a car costs around 4,000 shekels (£924; $1,227), far beyond what most people can afford,” he told the BBC.
Wael Al-Najjar, who was making his way to his home in Jabalia in the north, said he had slept outside on the cold pavement with his son waiting to be able to start his journey home.
He told a BBC freelancer: “Even if the house is destroyed, even if it’s just rubble, we’ll go back, put up a tent, and return to our people.”
Many on the road were aiming for Gaza City, much of which has been turned to rubble.
Mahmud Bassal, a spokesman for the Hamas-run Gaza civil defence agency, said later on Friday that “approximately 200,000 people returned to northern Gaza today,” AFP news agency reported.
Videos circulating online show vast swathes of destruction in the city’s main neighbourhoods, including Sheikh Radwan in the north, and Sabra and Zeitoun to the south and east, where entire apartment blocks have been levelled.
Gaza’s civil defence crews have been recovering bodies from beneath the ruins, while aid agencies have warned that essential supplies like food, fuel and clean water remain critically scarce.
In Israel, families of those held hostage in Gaza rejoiced at the news of the ceasefire.
Uri Goren, who has been campaigning since 7 October 2023 for the return of his cousin’s body after Tal Haimi was killed and taken by Hamas two years ago, said he allowed himself “a big sigh of relief” when he heard about the ceasefire agreement.
But his relief was tempered by Hamas’ admission that they don’t know the whereabouts of all of the dead hostages’ bodies. “This will not end until all 48 are back home,” he stressed.
Israel’s war on Gaza was triggered by the Hamas-led attacks on southern Israel on 7 October 2023, in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
Since then, more than 67,000 Palestinians have been killed, including more than 18,000 children, the Hamas-run health ministry says.
The UN commission of inquiry and leading experts have accused Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza during the course of the war.
Israel has categorically rejected the report, denouncing it as “distorted and false”.
Additional reporting by Lyse Doucet, Rushdi Abualouf and Alice Cuddy