People in Gaza celebrated on Saturday morning after Hamas launched deadly cross-border operations and fired thousands of rockets into Israel.
The situation has drastically changed after a day.
People have been staying indoors following a night of nonstop Israeli shelling. All through Sunday morning, there were more explosions.
The noise has been really ominous. All around the Gaza Strip, structures have been engulfed in clouds of black smoke.
Since previous night, according to Hamas, 150 targets had been attacked. These include military installations, the residences of the militant group’s top officials, and banks controlled by Hamas.
The Watan Tower, a focal point for internet service providers in Gaza, was the target of one of this morning’s most serious Israeli strikes.
According to Hamas, more than 300 people have died in Israel’s attacks. About half of these victims are civilians, including women and children.
Many places don’t have electricity because Israel has stopped giving power to Gaza. The supplier in Gaza can only give 20% of the electricity that is needed.
Food and drink supplies have been reduced.
This morning, as I was driving through the centre of Gaza city, I noticed that roads were blocked by pieces of broken buildings. The stores were not open, except for a few bakeries where many people were waiting in line.
The situation in Gaza, which was already very bad, has become even worse because of the escalation.
The hospitals that don’t have enough supplies, and already have difficulty providing healthcare to a population of over 2 million, are urgently asking for people to donate blood.
Mahmoud Shalabi, who is in charge of a charity called Medical Aid for Palestinians in Gaza, called the city’s main hospital a place where many people are being killed.
He said that lots of people were lying on the ground in the emergency department. “Mr Shalabi said there were a lot of dead bodies in the morgue and the medical staff couldn’t handle all the injured people coming in. ”
On Sunday, the Israeli army sent text messages to residents in a certain area of Gaza City, telling them to find shelter before attacks occur. Over 20,000 individuals went to United Nations places in the area, as mentioned by a UN representative to the BBC.
Hamas has been in charge of Gaza for the last 17 years. They are aware of the outcome of attacking Israel, so they must have anticipated big strikes in response.
The group supported by Iran has stated that it is ready for a conflict with Israel. Hamas said it has been secretly bringing in weapons despite the blockades by Israel and Egypt and making its own collection of weapons.
The group has promised to keep doing what they call “counterattacks”. After a break during the night, it claimed to have shot 100 rockets towards the southern Israeli town called Sderot.
Regular people in Gaza have different feelings about this conflict, which has never happened before. Some people were happy about Hamas’ rocket attacks, but many think that the violence will go on for a very long time and that’s concerning.