Four hundred and sixty-six days since Hamas fighters massacred over 1,000 Israelis and kidnapped hundreds more, the guns may finally be falling silent.

It is difficult to overstate how much the world has changed since that horrific day two autumns ago.

It has been Israel’s longest war – the longest single conventional war of the entire Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

In intensity and concentration of violence in the 25-mile-long Gaza Strip, it may have been the most destructive aerial and artillery bombardment of the 21st century.

Above all, the war changed Gaza.

The level of physical destruction has been compared to the firebombing of Hamburg in the Second World War.