Palestinians unload their belongings from a cart as they return to their ruined neighbourhood of Gaza's southern city of Rafah, following a ceasefire deal a day earlier between Israel and the Palestinian Hamas group.
Image: Eyad BABA / AFP
Palestinian militant group Hamas said on Monday that Gaza and its people "will rise again" and rebuild the territory battered by more than 15 months of Israeli bombardment.
"Gaza, with its great people and its resilience, will rise again to rebuild what the occupation has destroyed and continue on the path of steadfastness until the occupation is defeated," Hamas said in a statement issued on the second day of a ceasefire with Israel.
"Over the course of 471 days, the systematic crimes of the occupation have failed to dissuade our people and their valiant resistance from clinging to the land and confronting the aggression."
The war in Gaza broke out after Hamas's unprecedented attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,210 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.
Israel's blistering military response has killed at least 46,913 people in Gaza, according to the Hamas-run territory's health ministry, whose figures are considered reliable by the United Nations.
An initial 42-day truce came into effect on Sunday, with Hamas and Israel conducting a swap in which three Israeli hostages were released by the militants in exchange for some 90 Palestinian prisoners freed from Israel jails.
AFP