Life in Gaza: under fire with no sirens and no shelters

In Gaza’s largely deserted streets, the first thing you notice is the absence of children. The beach, usually crowded on Fridays, is empty save for a handful of fishermen casting hand nets into the surf.

Al-Azhar park, next to the university of the same name, and Barcelona park with its climbing frames, lawns and basketball courts, are empty.

The few children outside play in sheltered spaces between apartment blocks and the narrow lanes of the poor neighbourhoods, a few feet from their doors under the watchful eyes of parents: places deemed safer from bomb blasts.

Unlike Israel, there are no bomb shelters in Gaza. There are no sirens to warn of incoming missiles and no Iron Dome to shoot them down. The only warning, provided intermittently, is from those dropping the bombs – supplied by phone, text or a warning shot to the roof.

Circling drones

Under the ever-present hum of circling drones, squeal of jets, bomb blasts and the thud of naval gunfire from the sea, most women and children are stuck indoors, often in buildings without electricity.

These families have been caught in a catch-22. Afraid to leave their homes when the Israeli warplanes drop their bombs, it is the women and children sheltering in the buildings where they instinctively feel safest who are dying.

Gaza City’s central Firas market is usually packed. Yesterday only a few people were bustling along its lanes. Hamdi Haboush (63) sat outside his hardware store. “I haven’t had any customers at all today,” he said. “I only opened because I couldn’t bear staying in the house. There are 50 of my family in our building, including 20 grandchildren.

“It’s only really me who is going to early prayers at the moment [at four in the morning]. But it’s the most frightening time for bombs so I walk close to the walls.”

Mahmoud Karazem (30) arriving for Friday prayers in Radwan, has grown used to the bombs over the years and different campaigns: “It’s normal.” Life under advanced missile fire is not yet normal for his wife and two toddlers. “My wife is at home with the children. They are one and a half and almost three. I try to reassure them but when a bomb explodes it bursts the bubble. I cuddle them to get them used it, but sometimes it doesn’t work.”

In Tal al-Hawa, a neighbourhood hit hard in the 2008-09 conflict, baker Hazem Farwana (38) is making Ramadan pancakes. He and his son Samir (12) sell them for a £1.50 (€1.8) a kilo from a stall.

Pancakes are a treat at the end of a day of fasting eaten before families go visiting. But Farwana and his wife have not gone visiting: “I have four children under 16 – I won’t let them go too far from home.”

A bomb explodes, rattling the window frames. Farwana adds: “If I am going to die then I will die. I can die in the open as easily as I can indoors.”

– (Guardian service)