The streets in Gaza where children played and trees crowded for space on median strips are now little more than rubble.
In the six months since the October 7 Hamas attack and ensuing bombardment of the Gaza Strip by Israel, parts of cities including Rafah and Khan Younis are in ruins.
Hamas seized 253 people during the October attack, and according to Israeli tallies killed 1,200 others. More than 100 people are still being held hostage.
Gaza's health ministry says more than 33,100 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli response.
Drone footage released by Reuters shows the extent of the damage.
In one shot, taken in a Gaza City refugee camp in July, children ride their bikes together through the narrow streets.
At the time, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said the camp's population was more than 90,000 people.
Aerial footage in the same Reuters video shows the hundreds of crowded apartment buildings along the shoreline of the Mediterranean Sea.
Very little remains now of those same buildings — clips taken in late 2023 and early 2024 show mosque domes rising up out of the wreckage and entire neighbourhoods destroyed.
In Rafah, where green spaces were once dotted around orderly city streets, displaced Palestinians build shelters wherever there is free space.
As the camera lens rises, the rows of tents seem to extend further and further out towards that same blue stretch of coastline.
Half a year since the conflict escalated, Palestinians returning home to salvage what they can find their homes and cities unrecognisable.
More than 60 per cent of Gaza's residential buildings have been damaged or destroyed, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
When it comes to commercial buildings, that figure rises to more than 80 per cent.
The World Bank's interim damage assessment, released in March, says: "More than 1 million people have lost their homes."
"Health service delivery is experiencing major disruptions as nearly 84 per cent of health facility buildings have been destroyed or damaged," the report says.
"And those remaining lack access to medicines, ambulances, basic lifesaving treatments, electricity and water.
"The education system has completely collapsed, with all children out of school and most schools being used as shelter for internally displaced people (IDP).
"An estimated 17,000 children have been separated from their families, rendering them particularly vulnerable to various forms of exploitation and abuse.
"Owing to pervasive trauma linked to the ongoing violence mental health has deteriorated severely especially among the vulnerable including women, children, the elderly, and persons with disabilities."
In Khan Younis, a woman clambers over collapsed concrete slabs atop a mountain of her home's wreckage.
Her son crawls on all fours into a hollow under the rubble and twisted rebar, clearing away concrete blocks.
"There are no words to describe the pain inside me," she says, her voice breaking.
"Our memories, our dreams, our childhood here, our family … It's all gone."
ABC/Reuters/AP
