Gazans "living a nightmare"

As the death toll from Israel's aerial bombardment of the Gaza Strip continues to climb, Al Jazeera asked Gazans to describe the situation where they are and to explain how the offensive is affecting them. Majed Badra, 23, Gaza City, cartoonist and student at the Islamic University Unfortunately the situation is very bad in Gaza city - the Israeli occupation is striking more and more organisations, more houses and the mosque, and my university was hit last night. They focus on the civilians. It is easy for them. Nothing is working in Gaza and we don't do anything. We stay inside the house, my family and I. Every family in Gaza is doing the same. We are used to hearing these airstrikes, everybody here is used to it and we don't have any way to protect ourselves. We just stay inside the home, waiting to see what will happen. The world looks at unarmed Palestinian people as though they are a nation with an army, as though we are equal to the Israelis. They think we have real rockets that cause a lot of damage or have a big effect, but this is not true. The reality is that we don't have anything and they have struck everything in Gaza. I have exams coming soon in my university and I want to study but I can't in this situation. So they affect my future, the future of all students here. Why does the Israeli army strike my university and mosques and houses? I don't know the answer. You have to ask them. The coming days will be very bad. There will be more and more deaths. Nida' Aniss Abu al-Atta, 26, Gaza City, projects officer I and my family were so angry, believing that no one made enough effort to avoid this. Israel planned for this and we show readiness to resist despite being powerless compared to the Israeli arsenal. I feel angry with the Palestinian internal scene. They were unable to show themselves unified even before this tragedy. I hate the way Hamas leaders try to reflect our people's will by claiming that we can face this horrible military machine. Palestinian people are bleeding and shouting "enough". Even our president [Mahmoud Abbas] was powerless to the extent that it makes me sick and makes me lose faith in anybody. We all, the Palestinian people and leaders, are responsible for this crime. We execute the Israeli plans without thinking who would be the only ones benefitting from our division. My French teacher keeps saying: "Nida' you should not feel this normal, you have to keep saying it is horrible and feel angry. Don't get used to this." Well, I feel normal. It is strange when there are no martyrs, no helicopters in the air or reconnaissance aircrafts in the Gaza sky. Hamoudi, Tal el Hawa In my household, where I live with my brothers, sisters and my sister's eight-month-old baby, we have been sleeping far from the windows and living in darkness due to the lack of power. But despite all of that we are still alive. Life is precious and worth fighting for. All I seek in these moments is for the truth to get out there. Let it be known that in the 21st century this is happening while the whole world is watching but remains silent. I wonder how cheap Palestinian blood is. Mahmoud el Khuzondar, Gaza City, doctor in a public hospital I have been working as physician in Gaza for 20 years. Shifa hospital has been turned into an emergency centre with several intensive care units to cope with the attacks. But the emergency rooms do not have enough medical supplies or equipment to deal with the mass casualties. The biggest problem is lack of blood, but we also lack medication and equipment because of one-and-a-half years of blockades by Israel. We lose so many patients simply because of shortages. Most of the patients arrive with multiple organ injuries. Most of the women and children have fractures of upper or lower limbs and internal bleeding. Soldiers have worse injuries. People in Gaza are angry and saddened by this situation. There are shortages of everything here from bread to electricity. People just want to live as humans but have to go without fuel, without being able to heat their homes, without electricity for 18 hours at a time. Most of the people here are looking for both sides to stop and for leaders to go back to negotiations, and then for an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza. I believe all people should respect international law and no-one should be above it. Ghada Snunu, 30, Gaza City, human rights worker What is happening here is unbelievable, it's shocking–a catastrophe. We've been living a nightmare for the past two days because of what's happening around us. I fear for myself, my family and the people I care about. In all my life, I've never had such a bad feeling. I am so angry with the world–we hear nothing but words and there is no action, no real change. Enough, we are sick of hearing just words even from the Arab countries. We are human beings living here in Gaza just like animals–although maybe animals live in better conditions. We don't have medicine, food, cooking gas, fuel, power–we haven't seen electricity for a week now. In the beginning I thought that Israel is targeting Hamas, but then I saw houses and other buildings and roads being destroyed, and innocent people being killed and injured. Now I think that Israel is targeting Gaza and not Hamas. We never expected an attack of this scale and this number of people killed. It is a massacre. I didn't believe my own eyes at first, because it is so disgusting to see such a thing. Hatem Shurrab, aid worker in Gaza The situation is getting worse day by day. They're targeting everything. We don't know when or where they will strike next. They're hitting hospitals, medical centres, universities, homes, security centres, police. This morning five young sisters who lived near a mosque were killed. This is one story among hundreds. We are trying to provide support for hospitals but they are not able to deal with the injured. They have no space, no equipment. People are being treated outside hospitals on the streets. I'm homeless now after my home was destroyed. My family is afraid. My little nephew starts crying every time he hears an explosion. My mother tries to not let me go to work. The streets are almost empty. The only crowds are near bakeries. Mohamed al Sharif, NGO worker in Gaza There is nowhere you can sit without hearing explosions. I can tell you from my own experience that last night was terrifying; for me, for my wife and my baby. We're trying to hide in different corners of the apartment; trying to keep the windows open. That's what everybody is talking about; how not to get the windows broken. This is what we are going through right now. It's war conditions and we just don't know when the airplanes are going to hit. We cannot fight a sophisticated army like Israel's so we really don't know what can end this. We have no way out. The international community seems like it has already taken the Israeli side and unfortunately nobody wants to see what we go through. Some people in the media have been depicting us as the aggressors but in three days we have had over 300 casualties; the Israelis have one or two. No food, no drink, no medicine, no electricity, no gas. What else? It's just very inhumane what we are going through. Adnan Abu Hasna, UNRWA director in Gaza Even before the bombing Gaza was in need of everything. The people feel very angry and abandoned. What they want before anything else is to stop the killing. Education has been suspended, not allowing school children and teachers to go to school. Medical workers are not going to work because of the danger. Eight of our students were killed by a rocket as they left their classrooms to get the bus home. Baha' Enaya, Gaza, engineer At the beginning the targets were mainly stations of security forces, but later the operations expanded and targets also included police stations, societies, organisations and other infrastructure. Those targets are just in the middle of residential areas because of the nature of the surface in Gaza and the high density of the population. Naturally, the casualties will mostly be civilian. The bombing of the underground tunnels adds another hardship by cutting off fuel supplies. Many people used to obtain their fuel through those tunnels. The closure of the crossings is killing us slowly. While the Israeli response has been beyond any expectations, it is just an episode in a bigger project which aims to kill people's will and turn them into cattle whose top priority is not to resist the occupation but just to survive.