Tens of 1000’s of displaced Palestinians trekked for hours towards their properties in northern Gaza on Monday, practically 16 months after Israel launched an offensive there in response to Hamas’s Oct. 7 assaults. The returnees confronted wastelands of rubble after the Israeli navy destroyed total neighborhoods and Hamas booby-trapped buildings. Adam Rasgon, a New York Times correspondent, explains why the highway to everlasting peace stays difficult and elusive regardless of vital progress in the short-term cease-fire.