Inside Gaza: First pictures of devastation caused by air strikes as Israeli troops begin rapid pull-out

Last updated at 6:45 PM on 19th January 2009

They returned in their thousands to their homes today, broken families uncertain as to what they would find as the full scale of the devastation in Gaza began to emerge.

For the lucky ones, the buildings were still or partially intact but for many all that remained of where they had once lived was rubble, dust and gaping holes from the three-week Israeli bombardment.

Men, women and children picked with determination through the debris as they looked to salvage any scrap of their old lives, even a battered saucepan was help up triumphantly by one young boy, another clutched a photo of missing family.

All that remains: Mahmoud Saeed Khadar, 7, waits for a kettle to boil on a fire - made using wood salvaged from destroyed buildings - in what is left of his kitchen in Jebaliya

Devastation: A Palestinian family return to their destroyed house following an end to Israeli strikes

Such was the devastation facing some Gazans as they took advantage of the first true day of ceasefire in almost a month, they were unable to even find their way around their bomb-damaged neighbourhoods, let alone their homes.

Israel's Prime minister Ehud Olmert said he hopes to pull all troops out of the Gaza Strip by the time Barack Obama is inaugurated as President of the United States later today and its guns were silent yesterday, but there were ominous words from Hamas.

A spokesman for the group's armed wing, his face masked by a chequered Arab scarf, vowed it would replenish its arsenal of rockets and other weapons, in defiance of any Israeli or international efforts to cut off smuggling routes.

Scars of violence: Fatma Zidane El-Banneh, 8 (left) with her mother Azza, at the Beit Lahiya Elementary Co-educational school, where Azza claims Fatma was burnt by white phosphorus

Destitute: A Palestinian girl stands in front of a destroyed house on the outskirts of Jabalya

'Do whatever you want, bringing in and manufacturing the holy weapons is our mission, and we know how to acquire weapons,' the spokesman, Abu Ubaida declared. Israel launched the offensive to halt Hamas rocket fire into its cities.

Destruction in some areas of Gaza City was so widespread that streets resembled a moonscape. Damage elsewhere appeared pinpointed, with isolated homes flattened or demolished. Shattered glass and mounds of rubble littered city streets. Donkey carts hauled produce and firewood through streets littered with rubble and broken glass.

Among the rubble too people were still finding bodies - at least 95 yesterday - and the remains of loved ones. The number of Palestinians dead is put at 1,300 and rising.

Grieving: Palestinians pray at the graves of family members upon their return

Ceasefire: Israeli soldiers patrol near the border of the Gaza Strip, ahead of a pull-out by the time Barack Obama is inaugurated as U.S. president

But there was hope - and stories of remarkable survival, and remarkable reunions - as families visited hospitals to see whether their loved ones had survived or could now be taken from the hospital mortuarys for burial.

In one hospital, 15-year-old Arira al-Girim was being treated after she was found bleeding in a house, some four days after her father was killed by shell fire infront of her. Her brother and sister died, she believes, as they ran for help.

Her remaining family thought she too was dead and buried the scraps of flesh they thought were her remains.

'I looked outside, I found my father's car crushed, and his legs cut off," she told the BBC. "The floor was covered in blood from my leg.'

Tears of sadness: A Palestinian boy stands next to his family's house, destroyed during Israel's offensive

She says she wanted to leave, but her father was lying across the door. 'I didn't want to step on him incase I hurt him,' she said weeping yesterday, her leg in traction.

Arira had slept in the street for two days before struggling with a broken, bleeding leg in search of the safety of a shelter when she was found by a TV crew and taken to hospital.

Yesterday in hospital, she was reunited with her mother, who had thought her entire family had been wiped out.

Elsewhere there was more heartbreak as rescue workers in surgical masks ventured into what were once no-go areas and pulled bodies from buildings pulverized by bombs.

'We've pulled out my nephew, but I don't know how many are still under there,' Zayed Hadar said as he sifted through the rubble of his flattened home in the northern town of Jebaliya.

Mangled mess: A boy surveys the destruction following Israeli strikes in the east of northern Gaza Strip

Aftermath: Birds take to the clear skies over Gaza City houses that have turned to rubble

More than 50,000 are said to be still sheltering in United Nations buildings and UN director of Palestinian operations, John Ging, said 500,000 people had been without water since the conflict bergan, and huge numbers were without power.

'We have a big recovery operation ahead of us...tens of thousands of people have been made hopeless,' he said.

Despite losses suffered, Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh claimed 'a heavenly victory' in remarks broadcast on Al-Jazeera Arabic news channel.

A source in the Hamas administration in the Gaza Strip said 5,000 homes, 16 government buildings and 20 mosques were destroyed and 20,000 houses damaged. Israel has said militants used mosques as weapons depots.

Taking stock: A Palestinian man prays inside what's left of his apartment

Hope: Palestinian men pray near their destroyed houses in Jabalya in the northern Gaza Strip

It is estimated the cost of repairs will be nearly £1.5 billion and Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah announced the kingdom would donate £690 million for reconstruction.

No violations of the truce declared by Israel in Sunday, and Hamas 12 hours later, were reported yesterday. But the quiet remains tenuous because neither side achieved long-term goals.

Israel won a decisive battlefield victory but did not win a permanent end to Hamas rocket fire or solve the problem of smuggled arms reaching Gaza militants. Ending arms smuggling will require international involvement and tough diplomacy.

Some streets were brimming with people are cars yesterday - on several Hamas fighters walked carrying their weapons.

While Hamas remained firmly in power in Gaza, the militants also failed to turn Gaza into a graveyard for masses of Israeli troops, as they had promised.