Gazans took to the streets on Tuesday evening, cheering the thunderous sounds of rockets being fired towards Israel just days after the Israeli police in Jerusalem raided one of the holiest sites in Islam. Some whistled and chanted.

“Go! Go! Go!” they shouted. “God is with you.”

But on Wednesday morning the cheers had stopped, as Gazans emerged dazed from their homes after what some described as the most intense airstrikes since cross-border Israeli-Palestinian hostilities flared back up earlier this week. After a night of sporadic strikes, a final barrage lasted one seemingly endless hour, beginning around 6am (local time).

In one neighbourhood, near Zeitoun and Sabra, residents checked their homes and neighbourhoods for damage, and desperately sought information about where the missiles might strike next.

“I felt that the hits were random,” said Nadal Issa, 27, who owns a bridal shop.

Hamas and other militants have been exchanging fire with Israel since Monday. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, including at least 16 children as of Wednesday night, officials said; in Israel, at least six civilians have been killed, including one child.

In Gaza, though, some said they had never felt anything as intense as the wave of Israeli strikes that came Wednesday morning.

Some said it felt as if blast waves were hitting their face and body, as if their very neighbourhood was under attack. Disoriented, they staggered to windows to look outside.

“My two children woke up, and they asked me, ‘What’s going on?’” Issa said. Thinking quickly, he reminded them that the holiday marking the end of Ramazan was near. “I told them these are celebrations for Id.”

But in a period when Muslims pray for forgiveness and a good coming year, the cycle of retaliation playing out in Israel and Gaza this week has bred bitterness. Issa recalled standing by a window of his home Tuesday evening and watching the rockets take flight.

“I was praying from my heart that the rockets reached the heart of Tel Aviv,” he said.

Mohammed Sabtie, a 30-year-old motorcycle mechanic, was among Gazans who left their homes after the airstrikes subsided on Wednesday morning to see the damage. “The sound was very, very horrific,” Sabtie said. “It was like a state of war.”

New York Times News Service