KHAN YUNIS: Full of grief after two years of war but glad to be going home, thousands of displaced Palestinians set off across the Gaza Strip on Friday, as a truce between Israel and Hamas took hold.

Timidly at first, then in a huge column, thousands walked northwards in a line at least a kilometre long from the safer areas of central Gaza towards Gaza City, the scene of a gruelling Israeli offensive before Friday's ceasefire.

People chanted "God is great", cheering and whistling in their joy as they walked on a recently opened Mediterranean seafront road, AFP journalists saw.

Ibrahim al-Helou, a 40-year-old man from Gaza City displaced in the central refugee camp of Al-Maghazi, told AFP he was excited, but remained cautious.

He said that when he began heading home, "the situation was

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