With negotiations for a longer-lasting cease-fire set to begin soon, many Gazans returned to their neighborhoods Tuesday while some remained at shelters not trusting the break in the violence.

For now, a 72-hour humanitarian pause is in place, allowing delegations to gather in Cairo, Egypt, to talk about how to make the truce last.

For Gaza's 1.8 million residents it also offered a chance to go to a street market for food and goods, or to check on abandoned homes.

For Israel, where more than 2,300 rockets have landed since early July, there was, for a change, no sirens blaring.

In Gaza City, one man told CNN he was happy the shooting had stopped, but his problems were just beginning.

The man said he couldn't understand what he was seeing -- the home his family invested $100,000 in, now destroyed.

No insurance company will give him money to rebuild, he told CNN.

There are no winners in this war, he said.

But on Twitter, the Israel Defense Forces declared: "Mission accomplished."

The IDF said it had destroyed 32 tunnels -- many of which ran under the border into Israel -- during the four-week conflict. Israel says Hamas militants used the tunnels to sneak into Israel for terror attacks.

Nearly 1,900 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza during the conflict, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. It's unclear how many were militants. The United Nations estimates that about 70% of the dead were civilians.

But the IDF says it estimates about 900 militants were killed. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Peter Lerner said it was a preliminary figure based on field reports from troops returning from battle.

Israeli officials have said 64 Israeli soldiers and three civilians in Israel died in violence.

After the cease-fire began, residents trickled into Shujaya, an area near Gaza City that experienced some of the most destructive violence of the conflict.

They found craters and ruins where homes and shops once stood.

People scaled crumbled concrete and twisted metal to rummage for any belongings left in the rubble.

Nal Mohammed, a Ph.D. student whose family home was demolished, lamented the situation.

"Peace? What peace? We have no home, no water, no power," he said. "There is no peace here."

Residents were stunned as they returned to their neighborhoods for the first time since being displaced by the fighting.

"After the cease-fire agreement took effect, the world will now see the level of destruction which should serve as an evidence of the level of crimes of the enemy," Ismail Haniyeh, a senior leader of Hamas, said in a statement aired on Hamas-run Al-Aqsa television, according to a CNN translation.

The conflict has displaced more than 200,000 people across the densely populated territory.

Residents are coming back to similar sights -- rubble, ruins, buildings pockmarked by shrapnel.

A white-haired man, Hany Mahmoud el Harezen, stood on the roof of his collapsed two-story home.

"I am a wedding photographer, I have nothing to do with this war," he said. "Maybe if we had gotten some concessions, it would be worth it. But we got nothing."

For the first time Tuesday, the number of people packed into U.N. shelters decreased, said U.N. official Chris Gunness in Gaza.

But not everyone left the U.N. facilities.

Others were more pragmatic, thinking it best to wait and see.

"They said there was a truce before and we left," one man told CNN. "But five minutes after we got home, the airstrikes started."

Israel released a map noting numerous sites it targeted in Shujaya, which it said "Hamas used for military purposes." The IDF said the map showed locations of tunnels, hideouts, rocket firings and launchings, and more.

(CNN)