Beyond the surging death toll, it is the scale of devastation that has shaken Gazans. All the elements that underpinned normal life in the territory — the schools, the libraries, the bakeries and other businesses — have been shattered, Financial Times reports.

Dazed and terrified, Gazans fear there will be nothing to return to when the guns finally fall silent. Many conclude that Israel’s ultimate goal is to make the strip uninhabitable and force them to abandon the land they call home.

“They want to make Gaza unlivable,” says Faysal Shawa, a Gaza resident “Even if you allow us to go back tomorrow, how are we going to live? They destroy our homes, our investments, our factories, our trees, infrastructure — everything.”

Some in the far-right government of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu have suggested that Gazans could be voluntarily resettled, with finance minister Bezalel Smotrich telling Israel’s Army Radio at the weekend that if “there were 100,000-200,000 Arabs in the strip and not 2mn, the whole conversation about the day after [the war] would be completely different”.

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