WADI GAZA, Gaza Strip (AP) — From early Monday morning and hours afterward, crowds of Palestinians filled Gaza’s main coastal road for kilometers (miles) as they streamed north. With their belongings on their backs, they smiled, hugged and sang, overjoyed at the prospect of returning home after more than a year of war.

Palestinians speak to the BBC as they join hundreds of thousands returning to their homes, or the ruins of them.

Large numbers of Palestinians headed to the north of the Gaza Strip for the first time in months after Israel withdrew part of its troops from the Netzarim corridor as part of a cease-fire agreement.