Rafah (Gaza Strip), Jan 21 (AP) Many Palestinians on Monday said they felt hesitant about leaving the shelters they fled to after being displaced by war and returning to the wreckage of their former homes in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza.

"We wanted to come back to put up a tent during the ceasefire. As you can see, it has become a ghost town. There is no water. There is nothing. There is even no levelled ground you can stay on," Hussein Barakat said.

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Footage shot by The Associated Press showed displaced residents digging through rubble with bare hands.

Youssef al-Sharqawi sifted through the ruins of his destroyed home to try and retrieve clothes for his five children, including his infant son who has struggled to tolerate the winter's cold at night.

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Mohammed al-Ballas, another displaced Rafah homeowner, said without basic necessities -- including water and electricity -- it would be difficult to return home in Rafah for good.

Pointing at collapsed buildings, piles of rubble, and destroyed roads, he said he would remain in his shelter for now because there wasn't even space to erect a tent in the ruins of his former neighbourhood.

"Even if you tried to tie up an animal here, it will not live," he said. (AP)

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