'We want to live'
'We want to live'
Gaza residents plead for peace
Shuja'iya, a neighborhood east of the center of Gaza City, looked like a ghost town yesterday after many people had fled during the night.
Shops in the area's central market had their shutters down and locked. Ambulances were stationed around the periphery waiting for the attacks Israel had warned of to begin.
With hopes of a cease-fire in Gaza shattered Tuesday by Hamas rockets that provoked renewed Israeli airstrikes, thousands of people have fled their homes, taking refuge in UN buildings, some of which have been damaged by the Israeli bombardments.
The Israeli Defense Forces yesterday said that it warned, through recorded messages, text messages and leaflets, residents of three areas in Gaza, which has around 100,000 people, to vacate their homes because of its plans to carry out airstrikes on Hamas and other terrorist groups.
The Israeli military accuses Hamas is taking the people of Gaza hostage by using places like houses, hospitals and schools to hide weapons.
Many people living amid the daily Israeli bombardments of the impoverished Palestinian territory say they want peace. But they also want greater freedom.
"I'm not happy to see Israeli children hurt," says Mustafa, who once worked in Israel. "I have grandchildren, I don't want them to be hurt. We want to live."
Other residents say it's not as straightforward as a simple halt to hostilities, complaining about longstanding Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza.
"We are in jail here, big jail," said Abu Ashraf, a 65-year-old in the Shati refugee camp in northern Gaza, where distant explosions could be heard.
Hamas' political wing has said that what Palestinians really want is an end to the Israeli blockade on Gaza that is suffocating the daily lives of the 1.8 million Palestinians living there.
A woman in the southern Gaza town of Khan Yunis said some people had fled there from harder hit areas in the north and east of the territory, filling some homes with multiple families.
She said she believed other people were staying in their houses, regardless of warnings from lsraeli leaflets or other means.
These are their homes, they will not run, she said.
"These are more threats than warnings," says Abu Rahma of the Mezan Center. "Telling 150,000 people to leave their homes when there are airstrikes all along the route and nowhere to go because every home in every place is a target."
Abu Odeh in Shabilya tells CNN, "There's no escape."
"God has sealed our fate, whether we stay or leave."