Palestinian poet Fedaa Zeyad resisted fleeing her temporary home in Shati refugee camp in the west of Gaza City for as long as she could.

For days in early September she endured loud explosions and the ground shaking beneath her feet as Israeli forces pounded and demolished neighbouring districts in the famine-stricken city – the largest urban centre in the enclave, which was then housing up to 1 million people.

Zeyad hoped for “a miracle” so she would not be displaced yet again during the two-year war. But when the bombing reached her street she joined an exodus of hundreds of thousands of battered Gazans heading south to escape an impending advance of Israeli tanks into their city.

“This time there will be no return to Gaza City,” says Zeyad, who has moved to the so far relatively undamaged town of Deir al-Balah in the centre of the strip. “If I ever go back, it will not be the same city I have known. Already much of it has been erased and obliterated.”

Zeyad’s prediction is an indication of the task ahead, should the war triggered by the October 2023 Hamas attack on southern Israel come to an end. Over two years of relentless bombardment and repeated ground incursions, Israel’s offensive has pulverised the Gaza Strip, reducing huge swathes of it to rubble and wrecking its agricultural land and food systems.

Smoke rises following an Israeli military strike in Gaza City on Thursday. Photograph: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP

Last week, the US put forward a ceasefire and postwar plan that is backed by Israel and Arab states. It is conditioned on the disarming of Hamas militants and envisions that control of the territory would pass to a supervisory body, dubbed the “board of peace”, that will oversee a Palestinian committee administering day-to-day affairs.

Israel has accepted the plan, but with caveats. On Friday, Hamas broadly agreed to the proposals and said it is willing to free 48 Israeli hostages held in Gaza, 20 of whom are believed to be alive. US and Arab negotiators will hold talks with Israel and Hamas on Monday in an attempt to make progress.

But even if the plan is adopted and a ceasefire holds, it could cost billions of dollars and take many years to clear some 54 million tonnes of concrete debris and rebuild Gaza’s vital infrastructure and battered cities, according to UN estimates.

A senior aid official who closely monitors the destruction says that last year there had been hope of using “an incremental model” to fix and upgrade existing neighbourhoods and facilities. But the extent of the damage in the months since now demands a ground-up approach.

The US-backed Gaza plan, which includes a phased Israeli wi