GAZA'S GRIEF
Civilian find no place to hide
streamed along the main road from the north.
The northern border crossing to Israel was ghostly and deserted, a lone, sleeping dog replacing the taxi drivers who usually wait under the trees. To the east, shells whistled over the rattle of machine gun fire and the chirping of birds in the olive trees. Artillery cracked from in-
The grandmother insisted they split the family among other relatives. That way, she said, they could not all be killed by a single strike and lose ‘an entire generation’
But residents said it was because homes were so crowded with the displaced that people went outside for relief despite the danger.
On one Gaza City street, a small explosion on top of a cinder-block apartment house signaled what the Israeli military calls a “tap on the roof” — a warning to evacuate. People ran farther down the block. Ten minutes later, a huge cloud of smoke rose over the building as a larger strike gutted it, sending bystanders scattering.
“It was a black night,” said Abu Raed al-Najjar on Friday afternoon after visiting a corner grocery with two of his guests — young nieces still wearing the berry-and-heart-covered pyjamas they had fled in. “Flashes were lighting the night and the house was shaking.”
In the house, the taps were dry and the electricity was off. Normally, water and electricity were intermittent, said Najjar.
“When the water comes back on,” he said, “the electricity goes off and we can’t pump water to the roof tank.”
Now, the electricity authority is reducing the supply from 12 hours a day to between three and six, depending on the area. The UN provides fuel for generators at hospitals and other crucial facilities, but officials FLEEING FOR SAFETY: A Palestinian family who fled their home amid heavy Israeli shelling look for refuge in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis are concerned they will break down if run nearly all day.
Gaza’s infrastructure has been deteriorating for years, with budget crises and Israeli import restrictions that mean spare parts are lacking for even routine repairs.
Now, said Monzer Shublaq, the head of the water authority, repairs were falling even further behind because workers were refusing to visit sites without guarantees of their safety, a request they said had received no Israeli response.
Many Gazans were more concerned with immediate survival. Issam Hamdona, 35, a medical administrator, hurried down a hill in Beit Lahiya carrying belongings from his home there, pausing to rest only when he reached a less exposed place. Behind him, a single fleeing car, stuffed to its roof with sleeping mats, passed on the deserted street. An elderly woman stared out of the window.
Hamdona said he hoped the war would end with a deal for a long-term ceasefire by Hamas, the militant group that dominates Gaza and whose rocket fire Israel is seeking to end in exchange for its lifting the nearblockade on Gaza’s borders that Palestinians call a siege.
The deal, Hamdona said, should be backed by international guarantees, unlike the ceasefire that ended a similar war in 2012 without resolving underlying issues. In that conflict, he said, he fled an Israeli incursion and returned to his house to find it looted. Now, he said, his exhaustion made him ready to compromise on what he considered legitimate claims to all of British-mandate Palestinian territories, most of which are now part of Israel.
“We’re not asking for Jerusalem,” he said, expressing, like many Gazans, a viewpoint different from that of Hamas. “All we want are our humanitarian needs.” — © The New York Times News Service
Three more strikes in the afternoon killed an additional four children. And after 9pm an artillery shell killed eight people in their home, including four children