People are trapped in their homes as anything that moves can be hit

Muhammad Abu Shaban

• Last Updated: January 06. 2009 9:30AM UAE / January 6. 2009 5:30AM GMT

GAZA CITY // A few days after the new year started the Israeli military invaded, which we did not expect especially after its withdrawal in 2006.

We were all at home, my parents, my two sisters and I, sitting in the living room beside the radio and the small gas light, as the electricity had been off for two days by then, each one of us covered with a blanket. The windows were left open to protect them from shattering from explosions.

It was 7pm when the local radio stations announced that the Israeli tanks were invading the Gaza Strip from the north and the east. We thought when they invaded the air attacks would stop, but they didn’t. We spent the night listening to the continuous breaking news on the radio and hearing the explosions outside in both Jabaliya and Beit Lahia, north of Gaza City, from the tanks, F-16s, helicopters and the navy’s cannons.

At the beginning of the attacks the planes did not move that much over Gaza City itself, but that night we expected their return. About midnight two missiles hit the Al Saraia military building, which is less than 200 metres from our house. The strike was so close it made the children cry.

We had no chance of sleeping that night and we had not slept since the previous Saturday, when the Israeli army started its attacks. It was useless to try as the explosions were so loud.

It was dark all over the area. Nobody could be seen outside, nothing moved and nothing was heard except the explosions. The whole city became a city of ghosts.

The next day an F-16 attacked a civilian car that was parked 20 metres from our house. The explosion rocked our house and we felt a kind of interior pressure inside our bodies. That night the Israeli planes attacked a petrol station and hit the petrol tanks, causing an explosion that shocked the whole city. There was a very big cloud of dust and black smoke and fire lit the whole city.

The morning after the ground invasion was the worst. I listened to the radio for news about what was happening when the reporter said that three families in the north had left their houses because the Israeli tanks were attacking around their homes and they all went to an UNRWA school looking for a safe place to sit with their children. But the Israeli tanks waited until they entered the school and then shot rockets and bombs at it. Twenty-five people were killed, about 13 of them children.

The whole day is spent between the radio and the telephone, receiving calls from friends and relatives outside asking if we are OK and safe and, of course, calling friends and relatives who live in the other areas under fire – Jabaliya, Beit Lahia, Beit Hanoun and the areas in the south of Gaza Strip. A friend of mine who lives on the beachfront was sitting with his family downstairs, hiding from the cannons of the Israeli ships when a rocket hit the second floor of their home and destroyed the front wall and all of the doors and windows in the house. They were lucky, nobody was injured.

The day was full of disasters and killings. Three children were killed at their home in Al Zeitoun neighbourhood waiting for food and milk to be brought to them. Two youths were fixing the tap of the water tank on their roof when an Israeli plane shot at them with a rocket that killed them. The invasion news is broadcast continuously by all of the radio stations.

Like all people in the Gaza Strip we have been out of water and electricity for more than four days. Nobody can leave their house or even go out the door, as anything that moves can be hit.

The whole city is empty. In the day we can try going somewhere or even going down to our garden, which is risky, but nobody can be seen outside if the planes are out. Those who are leaving their houses need to go to the supermarkets, which are mostly closed, or to the pharmacy.

Gaza, since the beginning of the ground invasion, has become like a time bomb that explodes with any wrong movement. The killing, destroying and attacking is continuous.

We are only in need of prayers to save us all.



Muhammad Abu Shaban, 22, studies English and French literature at Al Azhar University. He is a translator and project manager for the Union of the Cultural Centres. He lives in Gaza City with his family.