Laila El-Haddad writing from Gaza City: As Gaza Burns

Things are tenusouly calm at the moment with on-again-off-again gunfire, which is better than it was only a few hours ago. But things in Gaza have a way of changing very quickly-for better or for worse. Volatility is its defining characteristic.

We happen to be sort of be in the eye of the storm as it were. Fierce battles employing mortars, RPGs, and heavy machine gun fire were raging all around our house today, at times only a block away, interdispersed with the thuds of Israeli gunships bombing areas of eastern and northern Gaza.

Yousuf of course became more and more concerned as the day passed, until I finaly told him they were not firing, but rather making an enourmous pot of popcorn outside that would fill the streets once it was done. At first he wasn't convinced, then he later remarkred "Mama, I don't really like this kind of popocorn!" When the firing died down, he ran into my room excitedly shouting "Mama, Mama! I think the popcorn is done!!"

The city was literally transformed into a ghost town, and civilian life was all but paralyzed. Storekeepers kept shops closed and virtually all residents, including schoolchildren and university students, remainded penned indoors. Most did not even dare to go to their balconies.

The occasional shopkeeper who did stay open was harassed by gunmen patrolling the streets.

"I don't understand-what are they fighing over, the trash in the streets?" lamented one shopkeeper to me.

"We're in a malestrom and i don't see a way out."

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