In pictures: heartache as Gazans return to their flattened homes

The temporary truce allowed Palestinian emergency services and residents to enter areas that had for days been too dangerous to go into.

Palestinian health official Ashraf Al Qedra said 132 bodies were recovered from the rubble of neighbourhoods devastated by Israeli bombardment and fighting between troops and Gaza militants.

Residents of the Shujaieh area east of Gaza City, where thousands fled last Sunday and Monday, returned to find homes, businesses and mosques reduced to piles of debris.

Structures in the area that were not destroyed were damaged by artillery fire that punctured walls and left half-metre-deep divots in streets.

A Palestinian man rescues his horse from the rubble of homes destroyed by Israeli military forces in the northern district of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip.

Palestinian medics at the scene where an ambulance driver and medic were killed by the Israeli army yesterday as they entered today to the northern district of Beit Hanoun.

A Palestinian stands in a damaged window against the massive destruction of a homes reduced to rubble.

Apart from those killed, more than 6,000 Palestinians have been injured over the past 19 days.

Palestinian women mourn the loss of their homes in the northern district of Beit Hanoun in the Gaza Strip.

The 12-hour humanitarian ceasefire gave Gaza residents a chance to return to their homes – or what was left of it – after days of unrelentless bombardments from Israeli fire. More than 100 bodies were pulled out from under the rubble. Photos by Heidi Levine for The National