GAZA: Gazans searched for loved ones and heard news of family members killed as communications gradually returned to the enclave on Sunday after a total blackout as Israel's troops and armour pushed into the enclave.
The fighting intensified on Friday night as Israeli forces waged ground operations in Gaza in what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as the second phase of the war.
Shaban Ahmed, a public servant who works as an engineer and has five children, described the Israeli attacks as "doomsday".
"This morning, Sunday, I discovered that my cousin has been killed in an air strike on their house on Friday," Ahmed said, who stayed in Gaza City despite an Israeli warning to evacuate south.
"We only knew today. Israel cut us off from the world in order to wipe us out, but we are hearing the sounds of explosions and we are proud the resistance fighters have stopped them at meters distance."
Palestinians were struggling to find loved ones in the bloody chaos as the growing humanitarian crisis squeezed Gaza. One woman looking for one of her sons stood over rubble in Gaza City and cried out: "I don't know where he is."
In another part of Gaza, people looked for survivors after Israeli air strikes in the Al-Nasir neighbourhood. People pulled a body from the rubble as smoke billowed. A woman screamed. Others carried the injured.
Many people have been glued to rusty radios for news, which had become the only means to get information on the heaviest Israeli air strikes ever on narrow Gaza, one of the most densely populated spots in the world, with the internet and phones down.
Medical services became so stretched that ambulances were no longer taking calls. People hit by bombings relied on volunteers to take them for treatment.
People in the southern Gaza Strip said they heard the explosions and saw the sky light up - but had no means of checking on family and friends in the targeted areas. — Reuters
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