People find landscape in southern Gaza city marked by shattered buildings and stench of death from under the rubble

• Civilians return to Khan Younis – in pictures

Thousands of Palestinians, exhausted by six months of unrelenting war and multiple displacements, trudged back to the devastated city of Khan Younis on Monday, a day after Israel’s unexpected withdrawal of its forces from southern Gaza.

With many making the journey on foot from nearby Rafah, they struggled to find homes that had been atomised by the force of the bombardment in neighbourhoods heavy with the smell of death, where family and neighbours worked to dig out bodies long buried in the rubble.

Families left unsure if loved ones are alive or dead as they search through rubble for signs of survivors

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Late one night in March, Ahmed Abu Jalala rose quietly, trying hard not to wake his family, sleeping around him on the floor of a UN-run school in northern Gaza.

The 54-year-old father knew his six children needed food, but after months of war there was none. Little aid reached Jabaliya, where they had been staying since fleeing their small home in the early weeks of the conflict, and his children had been reduced to eating wild plants. So Abu Jalala went out into the darkness to search for flour being brought by a humanitarian convoy.

Gaza’s Islamist rulers reiterated demands for a permanent end to the war and a withdrawal of Israeli troops

• Middle East crisis – live updates

Hamas has announced it will take part in a new round of ceasefire talks in Cairo, as the body of an Israeli hostage has been found in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis, the Israeli military said.

Six months into the war, repeated attempts at brokering a second truce after a week-long pause at the end of November in which hostages and Palestinian prisoners were exchanged have failed.