Gazans on Monday faced a first day of Ramadan
overshadowed by funerals and the grim task of pulling bodies from collapsed
buildings.
This incident is taking place after two sleepless days and
nights of Israeli shelling and Palestinian rocket fire.
As dawn brought a ceasefire of uncertain duration, few
Palestinians in the impoverished coastal enclave were focusing on the sundown
feast that is traditionally the highlight of the day during the Muslim holy
month.
At Gaza City’s largest hospital, Shifa, relatives of the 21
Palestinians killed on Sunday, including 12 civilians arrived to collect bodies
for burial and prayers.
Outside, workers set about rebuilding power and phone lines
devastated by the Israeli bombardment, which also razed entire tower blocks,
leaving rubble strewn across the ground.
Other government employees lined up at banks to draw out
money they had been unable to collect during the hostilities.
The Israeli military said its tanks and warplanes had hit
350 Hamas and Islamic Jihad targets in Gaza, including a cross-border tunnel,
militant training camps and places used to store weapons.
An Israeli military spokesman said the Palestinian militant
groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad had fired around 690 rockets toward Israel,
killing four Israeli civilians.
Calling the barrage “reckless and coordinated’’ the military
said 240 of the rockets had been intercepted by Israel’s air defences.
In the Sheikh Zayed neighbourhood of northern Gaza,
residents were in shock a day after an Israeli air strike killed six people.
The four apartments wrecked in the five-storey building were
among 600 housing units left destroyed or damaged, according to the ministry of
housing.
“I have never seen in my life more horrifying images than I
saw yesterday. I saw dismembered bodies, burnt up bodies,” said 60-year-old
Ziyad Hammash, who lives in the building across the street.
Sumayya Usruf, whose cousin, husband and four-month infant child
were killed in an apartment in the northern Gaza Strip, said: “This is a very
tough Ramadan. We will not feel festive.’’
As she spoke, dozens of men brought the body of the baby
home for farewell.
Inside the ambulance was a coffin filled with flesh and body
parts.
Israel accused Gaza’s ruling Hamas of trying to pressure it
into easing long standing restrictions on the movement of people and goods out
of Gaza, which Israeli authorities say is necessary to stop arms reaching
Hamas.
In the West Bank, Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, whose
Western-backed Palestinian Authority is a bitter rival of Hamas said it would
send humanitarian aid and food to Gaza.
But in Gaza there was pessimism that the latest ceasefire
would be a long-term solution.
“This round is over but I am afraid another will soon begin.
We aspire to a day when nothing of this will happen,” said 55-year-old Adel
Mohammad-Ali at one funeral.
