The Mohammed family sat up talking late into the night before their journey north to the ruins of their Gaza home, a trudge across a desolate landscape that hundreds of thousands of Palestinians embarked on last week after a cease-fire.

Crowding around the fire and the cooking pot on the sand by their tent in a sprawling camp for displaced people in Deir al-Balah in the southern half of the Gaza Strip, they talked of their excitement about going home, plans for the tough days ahead and the fear and hardship they had lived through over 15 months of conflict.