Displaced Gazans have little faith in Israeli truce
Word has spread among sheltering Gazans that Israel will soon hold its fire, but those who have fled its onslaught are wary of venturing back to homes that may no longer exist.
Latifa Ghaban, huddling with her children and grandchildren at a UN-run school in the shell-shocked town of Beit Lahiya, still thinks it too dangerous to go back to her home, which was struck by tank fire.
"We will not return to our house unless there is an Israeli-Palestinian agreement and a complete stop to the war," the 56-year-old woman says.
"The Jews struck our house, they killed my son and they wounded my husband," she says. "I won't return because I am scared for the rest of my children."
The school provides some safety, but not enough, as Latifa and others discovered earlier Saturday when Israeli munitions rained down on the building, setting parts of it alight and terrifying the 1,600 people sheltering there.
Two young boys, one five years old and the other seven, were killed in the attack, which wounded a dozen other people including their mother, whose legs were blown off and who is now in critical condition, according to medics.
It was the fourth such strike on UN-run buildings in Gaza since Israel's massive offensive on the Hamas-ruled territory began December 27. The war has claimed the lives of more than 1,200 Palestinians, a third of them children.
Israel has said it is investigating the attack on the school, and insists it is striving to avoid striking civilians in a war aimed at halting Palestinian rocket fire on southern Israeli towns.
But Ghaban puts little faith in what she hears from Israelis.
"The Jews are liars. I don't believe them. They'll say there is a ceasefire and then continue the shelling," she says.
On Saturday Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel would halt its fire at 0000 GMT but that troops would remain in the territory and return fire if attacked by Palestinian militants.
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