THEY BOARDED buses in the pre-dawn murk yesterday, those lucky foreign passport holders allowed by Israel to escape from seven days of Israeli bombardment in the Gaza Strip.
"The situation is very bad. We are afraid for our children," said Ilona Hamdiya, a woman from Moldova married to a Palestinian. "We are very grateful to our embassy," she said in lightly accented Arabic.
Between 350 and 450 foreigners were authorised by Israel to leave Gaza if they wish, via the forbidding concrete corridor that ushers them into Israel's fortified crossing point and its panoply of security scanners to detect hidden suicide bombs.
Five busloads headed out on the short trip to the border, one of American passport holders and four of mainly east Europeans.
They left behind 1.5 million Palestinians unable to escape the conflict which has killed 414 people since it began last Saturday. Meanwhile, four Israelis have been killed by Gazan rockets.
Gaza city was waking up to another day of Israeli air strikes, flickering electricity and long queues for bread. Aside from the bakeries, the almost-deserted streets were cold and dirty, littered with a week's bombing debris.
Morning air strikes hit six houses. A Palestinian girl of about 14 died apparently of a heart attack, terrified by an explosion which rocked her house, neighbours said. In the south, an Israeli missile killed three children aged eight to 12 as they played in the street in the southern town of Khan Yunis. One was decapitated. At Shifa hospital in Gaza city, doctors could not disguise their anger.
"These injuries are not survivable injuries," said Madth Gilbert, a Norwegian surgeon unable to save one boy who had both feet blown off. "This is a murder. This is a child," he said.
At the UN beach distribution centre, teenagers with rickety trolleys and men with horses and carts collected sacks of flour and other food aid from a warehouse replenished the day before by 70 aid trucks allowed in via Israel.
"Only God can get us out of this mess," said one old man waiting to buy his ration of unleavened loaves.
At Jabalya refugee camp to the north, boys inspected the twisted concrete left in place of one of the Israeli air force's latest targets, the so-called Mosque of Martyrs. Israel says it was a hidden arsenal and command post for fighters of the Islamist Hamas group which rules the Gaza Strip.
The air force supplied black-and-white cockpit video of the strike to underscore the large number of secondary explosions which it said proved its case. Several mosques that would normally be busy before Friday prayers were still closed in the morning because they had been warned by Israel's army that they would be bombed.
Nine have been hit since the attacks began on Saturday.
"I will pray at home. You never know, they may bomb the mosque and destroy it on our heads," said one man buying humus from a street stand. Another was defiant: "What better than to die while kneeling before God?" he said.
Gaza markets, normally bustling on a Friday, were deserted.
"It is an adventure to get out of your house to fetch a kilo of tomatoes or something," said Abu Yasser, a father of four.
"But I must take my chances because my children are not to blame for this, and they do not understand why all this is happening," he said.
Hundreds of families say they have had telephone calls warning their houses would be bombed, and they have left to stay with relatives or friends. Some of their neighbours have packed up and gone as well, wary of becoming "collateral damage".
Duct tape has been in heavy demand by Palestinians who tape up their windows hoping to protect against flying glass from the heavy explosions.
Hamas police moved about mostly in plain clothes, with no guns on display. Merchants were warned against war profiteering.