INSIDE GAZA:The first Israeli air strikes came without warning, were over in minutes and left dozens of dead in their wake, write Hazem Baloushaand Rory McCarthyin Gaza City in Jerusalem
TO THE doctors at the Shifa hospital in Gaza City it was another body on a chaotic day.
By early Saturday afternoon the morgue was already overflowing, so they laid out the corpse of Ali Abu Rabia (20) on the floor outside. One of the staff pulled a mobile phone from his pocket, scrolled through the numbers and called the young man's father.
"I was at work. Someone from the hospital called and said they had found my son," said Marwan Abu Rabia (44), a plumber. "I went straight to the hospital and found him lying on the floor outside the morgue. There were too many bodies. It looked like a massacre."
The hospital was so crowded that staff held back relatives outside the building and turned away the lightly injured. They struggled to treat the seriously hurt, some of whom lay on beds in corridors due to congested wards.
Ali Abu Rabia was a student at a UN vocational college for Palestinian refugees in the Rimal district of Gaza City. He sat an exam on Saturday morning, his father said, and after the first air strikes decided to go home. He was standing in the street with others when an Israeli missile struck around 1.30pm. Reportedly it had been aimed at a policeman seen nearby with a walkie-talkie.
"It was a place full of students. It was not a military base. But in spite of this they still attacked, all because of one policeman," said Ali's father, as he greeted mourners at a funeral tent at his home yesterday. "Our situation is very bad and the cause is Israel. The response has to be very tough." He said he doubted there would be a peace agreement with Israel in the coming years. "I don't believe they want an independent Palestinian state," he said.
In that single air strike seven students were killed and another 20 were injured. The Guardian has learned of several other civilians killed or injured in the same strike on Saturday.
Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the UN Relief and Works Agency, which supports Palestinian refugees and feeds 750,000 Gazans, called for an inquiry into the attack. "Grave question marks hang over this killing . . . There must be an investigation and the facts must get out. There must be accountability."
Another funeral tent was put up at a family home a few hundred metres away. Nehru Rayes (47), was presiding over a funeral for his two sons Hisham (25), a carpenter, and Alam (18), who had been at school, and their cousin Abdullah (21), who ran an internet cafe. All three were killed in the street in the same air strike.
Rayes, a petrol station worker, learned from the Shifa hospital that all three were dead, and that two other relatives had been injured. Representatives of the rival Palestinian factions Fatah and Hamas came to his house, offering, as usual, to help with funeral costs. He refused them both. "We've become like the homeless, begging for electricity, cooking gas and food," he said.
He spoke of the "corruption" of the previous Fatah governments, and said of the Hamas leaders: "They have everything they want: cooking gas, generators, and they can move whenever they want. But the Palestinian people are suffering." Like many in Gaza yesterday, he spoke angrily of a desire for revenge against Israel. "When they fight face to face with armed groups that's OK, but when they attack civilians it's not acceptable," he said. "We need to go back to a ceasefire, eventually, but it has to mean all the crossings are open again and life returning to normal."
His relative, Morad Rayes (46), said: "The disagreement between Hamas and Fatah gave the Israelis the reason to attack Gaza. All the ordinary people are suffering in this bad economic situation. It's just those belonging to the factions who benefit. We are facing a tough enemy. We have to be united."
At the Shifa hospital yesterday there were still relatives pouring through corridors, looking for the injured. Most of the wounded spoke bitterly of their experience.
Mohammad Jahjouh (21), lay on a hospital bed with cuts to his legs and side. He was injured on Saturday night when an Israeli missile struck a mosque close to the hospital. "I thought I was dead but then I started to move my hands and legs and I screamed for help," he said. He was carried into the hospital. "It's unjust, unfair and aggression. After this huge number of casualties it would be a sign of weakness for us to ask for a ceasefire."
Gaza's streets were largely empty yesterday, with most shops closed and queues only at local bakers. Mowaffaq Alami (35), was close to the main security headquarters, the Suraya, on Saturday when it was attacked in the first round of air strikes at around 11am. "People were walking through the streets just like a normal day, children coming home from school. Suddenly, without any warning, the bombing started. We didn't even see the jets in the sky. That's why so many people were killed," he said. The first round of attacks, over within minutes, left dozens dead, he added.
Alami runs the Gaza office of One Voice, an initiative that works to support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "People are very worried there may be an invasion. We used to plan our lives day by day. Now, it's hour by hour," he said.