As Israeli forces and Palestinian fighters hold fire in Gaza, civilians are trying to return home [AFP]
Published On 19 Jan 200919 Jan 2009
But what many Palestinians find are rubble and devastation [Gallo/Getty]
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Crowded into a strip of land 40km long and 10km wide, Gaza's 1.5 million people suffer from widespread poverty, malnutrition and unemployment [Gallo/Getty]
A situation only worsened by Israel's bloodiest assault on the territory in decades [Gallo/Getty]
About 100,000 Gazans lost their homes in the three-week war [Gallo/Getty]
More than 75 per cent of the territory's electricity has been cut off as Gaza's only power plant remains shut due to lack of fuel [Gallo/Getty]
At least 30 per cent of the population has no access to clean running water and sewage treatment plants have stopped working [AFP]
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And more than 10,000 people are at risk of having their homes flooded with waste water as a major sewage dump is on the verge of breaching its banks [AFP]
Of the 22,000 buildings destroyed in the Israeli offensive, 4,000 of them were residential buildings [AFP]
Hamas says the Strip will need at least $1.6 billion to rebuild [AFP]
Meanwhile, ordinary Gazans remain uncertain whether the relative calm will last [AFP]
