As Israeli troops move deeper into Gaza, Hazem Balousha and Chris McGreal speak to people inside the beseiged territory.
It has never been like this before. The assault is coming from the
sky, the sea and the ground. The explosion of shells, the gunfire from
the tanks, the missiles from planes and helicopters, are all incessant.
The sky is laced with smoke, grey here, black there, as the array of
weaponry leaves its distinctive trail.
Most Gazans can only cower
in terror in whatever shelter they can find and guess at the cost
exacted by each explosion as the toll for those on the receiving end
rises remorselessly.
As Israeli forces carved up the Gaza strip
today, dividing the territory in two as tanks sliced through the centre
of the territory to reach the sea south of Gaza City, the UN warned of
a “catastrophe unfolding” for a “trapped, traumatised, terrorised”
population.
Among the terrorised is Mahmoud Jaro. He was
sheltering with his wife and four young children in his home in Beit
Lahiya, on the eastern side of the Gaza Strip, within sight of the
Israeli border, when he heard the first tank engines in the early hours
of Sunday morning.
He grabbed his children, the youngest only three, and fled.
“I
couldn’t see anything. The area was dark. They cut off the electricity.
We were moving in the pitch dark. There were shells, rockets
everywhere. Shooting,” he said.
“I was just trying to protect my children. They were very scared and afraid. My youngest son was crying all the time.”
Eventually, Jaro and his family made it across Beit Lahiya to his parents in law’s house in a relatively safer part of the town.
“I
don’t know what’s going on. I don’t know what the Israelis want. This
time it’s from the air, the sea, the ground at the same time. I’ve
never experienced it like this,” he said.
The Israeli army warned others who had stayed in their homes to get out.
It
seized control of Palestinian radio frequencies, jamming Hamas and
Islamic Jihad stations, and broadcast a warning in Arabic telling
people to move towards the centre of Gaza City for their own safety.
Others did not escape the assault. The wounded and dead piled up at Gaza’s al-Shifa hospital on Sunday.
Eric Fosse, a Norwegian doctor there, said Hamas fighters were a small minority of the casualties brought in.
“This
hospital has been filled up with patients,” he added. This morning they
[Israeli forces] bombed the fruit market. There were a large number of
casualties.
“We became like a field hospital. There were two
patients at a time in the operating rooms and we were operating on
other people in the corridors. Some were dying before we could get to
them.”
Moawya Hasanian, the head of al-Shifa’s emergency and
ambulance department, said the hospital had taken in 33 dead and 137
wounded by lunchtime on Sunday.
Among those killed was an paramedic after his ambulance was hit by Israeli fire. Three of his colleagues were wounded.
“Only
three of the dead are from Hamas, the rest are civilians,” Hasanian
said. “There are many children under 18. There are many in critical
condition. We are working under pressure. It’s not easy to work with
bombs and air strikes everywhere. It’s not easy for ambulances to move.”
Since
Israeli ground forces crossed into Gaza on Saturday evening, five
people were killed when an Israeli shell hit Gaza city’s main market.
The
Palestinians said a single tank shell killed 12 other people in
northern Gaza. An air strike took five lives in a mosque as dusk fell.
At least 20 others have died.
The total death toll since the Israeli assault began with air raids eight days ago has risen to more than 500.
Hamas
has put up a fight, claiming Israeli casualties. The military said one
soldier was killed by a mortar and 29 others wounded as they fought for
control of areas around Beit Lahiya, Beit Hanoun and the Jabaliya
refugee camp in northern Gaza, close to where Hamas launches its
rockets on Israel.
The Israeli military said Hamas fighters were not engaging them in close combat but using mortars and roadside bombs.
Occasionally,
through the huge Israel attack and Palestinian resistance to it, there
came the sound of a Hamas rocket launched into Israel – a reminder that
the invading army is going to have to move even deeper into Gaza to
achieve its declared aim. By dusk, Hamas had fired at least 30 rockets.
John Ging, the head of the UN relief agency in Gaza, described the situation there as “inhuman”.
“We
have a catastrophe unfolding in Gaza for the civilian population,” he
said. “The people of Gaza City and the north now have no water. That
comes on top of having no electricity. They’re trapped, they’re
traumatised, they’re terrorised by this situation.
“They’re in
their homes. They’re not safe. They’re being killed and injured in
large numbers, and they have no end in sight. The inhumanity of this
situation, the lack of action to bring this to an end, is bewildering
to them.”
The UN has been particularly angered at the contention
of the Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, that there is no
humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Ging also accused Israel of a campaign of destroying public buildings vital to the administration and governance of Gaza.
“The
whole infrastructure of the future state of Palestine is being
destroyed,” he said. “Blowing up the parliament building. That’s the
parliament of Palestine. That’s not a Hamas building. The president’s
compound is for the president of Palestine. Schools, mosques.”
While
some Israeli forces seized control of areas north and east of Gaza
City, tanks and troops also carved their way through the centre of
Gaza, taking control of what used to be the Jewish settlement of
Netzarim.
Its hundreds of houses and public buildings are nothing
more than rubble after the Israelis bulldozed them as they pulled the
settlers out of Gaza in 2005.
Some of the tanks then continued on
the short distance to the sea, cutting Gaza in two – a tactic
frequently favoured by the Israeli army when it still had military
bases in the territory – and making movement between the halves
impossible for Palestinians.
Samar Abdel Rahma lives close to Netzarim and watched the Israelis move back into the wreckage of settlement.
“All
night there were bombs, fire, from everywhere,” he said. “The noise was
very loud. I could see the tanks moving. It was a terrifying situation.
I could feel the ground moving because of the tanks.
“All of my
family came to my room because its the safest place in the house. We
are 13 people living here. Since the Israeli operation started I didn’t
leave the house. We’ve had electricity for just a few hours the entire
time. We are not even cooking.”
The Israeli military has been
broadcasting derisory comments on the seized radio frequencies,
accusing Hamas officials of cowardice and abandoning the population by
going in to hiding.
The leadership, including the prime minister,
Ismail Haniyeh, and the Hamas chief, Mahmoud Zahar, have not been seen
in public in days following the targeted assassinations of other senior
officials by the Israelis.
But Abu Ubaida, a spokesman for the
armed wing of Hamas, denied they were hiding and said the morale of the
organisation’s fighters remained high.
“We have been able to hit a tank … and more surprises are awaiting the invaders,” he added.