Gaza conflict: 'we don't have anything' – then suddenly the ceasefire was over

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/04/gaza-ceasefire-frontline-village-khuzaa

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The road to Khuza'a village winds across scruffy fields, between steadily more battered buildings, through the detritus of war. At its end lies a jumble of cement and breeze-block homes, mosques and shuttered shops once home to 10,000 people. Beyond lies the border with Israel.

Until late last week, Khuza'a was the scene of fierce combat. As part of its ground operation in Gaza, the Israeli military moved deep into the enclave, basing tanks and troops in the village. Here soldiers fought Hamas militants and shelled more distant targets. Insofar as this chaotic, fast-moving conflict has had frontlines, Khuza'a was one.

On Monday a few of its inhabitants returned. Israeli forces, which had pulled back at the weekend, declared a unilateral ceasefire from 10am to 5pm local time. But if the ceasefire brought relative relief to Gaza, it brought no end to the uncertainty. Instead, the steady attrition of recent days was replaced with unpredictable killing.

Three people, including an eight-year-old girl, died in an air strike north of Gaza City around 10am. The exact time of the strike was unclear. There was shelling in the north of Gaza, and about 30 rockets were fired on Israel. East of Rafah, the southern city pummelled by artillery and air strikes in recent days, clashes continued. The area had been specifically excluded from the ceasefire.

There was violence outside Gaza too. In Jerusalem, a man drove a bulldozer into a bus, killing one and wounding five before he was shot. He was later named as Muhammed Naif El-Ja'abis, from East Jerusalem. Later a soldier was shot and seriously injured in the city.

News emerged of a British aid worker allegedly killed in an Israeli air strike on Sunday. David Cameron, said the Foreign Office was urgently investigating reports that Kadir Islam, from Rochdale, had been killed while delivering supplies to a hospital in Rafah.

Meanwhile in Cairo, talks involving representatives of all Palestinian factions continued. So far they have been inconclusive.

In Khuza'a, few houses had escaped four weeks of war unscathed. Most had jagged holes punched through walls by shell fire. Many had been destroyed. Entire sections of metalled road had ceased to exist, dug up to a metre's depth.

Near the centre of the village, Amin Abu Rok stood in the ruins of the three-storey house he had shared with his extended family. "I lived on the second floor. Now I don't need any stairs to get in to my home," the 42-year-old farm labourer joked darkly.

The damage underlined the scale of the reconstruction effort that will be required when this conflict is over. "We don't have anything. No money, nothing. If we had a tent we would consider ourselves lucky," Abu Rok said.

Then suddenly the ceasefire in Khuza'a was over. An explosion on the north side of the village froze the few dozen people in the streets. A second sent them scurrying for cover. A third sparked a rush for motorbikes, cars, donkey carts, motorised rickshaws, or simply panicked flight. In the next 10 minutes, at least two dozen shells landed, apparently fired by tanks on the border less than a mile distant.

Similar firing in the north of Gaza was prompted by mortar fire directed at troops, an Israel Defence Forces (IDF) spokesman said.

Hamas is almost invisible in Gaza, except for a handful of spokesmen, one of whom issued a statement on Monday calling the ceasefire a "trick for the media". Most appear to be confined to the tunnel system they have painstakingly built over recent decades. Some of these tunnels allow infiltration across the border. It was destroying these that Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, designated as the primary goal of the Israeli ground offensive launched on 17 July.

On a visit to the army's southern command on Monday, Netanyahu said the operation would end "only when quiet and security are restored to the citizens of Israel for a lengthy period".

Key to Hamas defences is a deep network of well-concealed bunkers, armouries and storehouses within Gaza where commanders can be concealed for weeks on end and which can be used in combat operations. In Khuza'a, fighters from Hamas concealed themselves and waited for the IDF to move in, said one man who refused to give his name.

His 26-year-old son was among those who laid the ambush, and died with six others when they launched an attack on an Israeli military armoured bulldozer in the village. "They stayed inside and attacked the Israelis," the man said.

His son was married, with a daughter, and unemployed. All the men in the group knew each other and were from the village, he told the Guardian. "Of course I am proud of my son. He died on the day of Eid [28 July]. There were hours of fighting when they first came in. They hurt the Israelis badly," he claimed.

It is difficult to verify such statements, but evidence in Khuza'a – including spent small arms ammunition – does indicate fierce combat. The IDF reported losing 10 soldiers on 28 July, including a bulldozer operator who died when his vehicle was hit by an anti-tank missile. In all, 64 soldiers have died in the war.

Similar tactics, including hiding in bunkers and then ambushing troops, were employed by Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based Shia Islamist group, in their war with Israel in 2006. Nearly 3,000 rockets have been fired by Hamas on Israel in recent weeks.

The shelling of Khuza'a in effect ended any hopes that families would be able to move back to the village in the near future and out of the packed homes of relatives or the UN-run shelters in schools. More than 450,000 people, a quarter of the total population of Gaza, have been displaced, and the total is rising every day. The UN said on Monday it was looking after 273,000. On Sunday, a blast outside the gates of a school in Rafah killed nine, including five children.

On Monday, at least 15 people were reported to have been killed in Gaza in the hours before the partial ceasefire came into effect. One was a senior military leader from the Palestinian Jihad faction, according to local media.

During the day, 32 bodies buried by rubble or otherwise previously inaccessible were retrieved. More than 9,000 Palestinians have been injured and 1,865 killed, according to local health officials. Three civilians have been killed by rockets in Israel.

To underline the chaotic, fragmented, unpredictable nature of this new phase of the conflict, while shelling continued in Rafah, many shops opened in Khan Younis, only a few miles away. In Gaza City, streets remained empty.

Omar Tarabish, 28, said he hoped "something will come out of [the talks in] Cairo" as "we are all waiting for safety and calm".

Neither look likely. At exactly 5pm, as the partial ceasefire ended, the boom of a new strike shook northern Gaza City.