Gaza, where tragedy and news are never far away

GAZA, Jan 5: The sound of explosions boomed over Gaza City as Israel carried out another air strike against Palestinian militants behind rocket attacks and I expected a familiar sight as I hurried to the scene.

But after forcing my way through a crowd of onlookers, I was unprepared for what awaited me on June 13 last year.

Among the dead was a militant killed by a missile. But another missile had hit the nearby home of my cousin Ashraf, 29.

Ashraf, his son Maher, 6, and another of my cousins, 14-year-old Hisham, were all killed.

Tears streamed down my cheeks as I telephoned my report to the Reuters bureau in Jerusalem and thought of the terrible losses suffered by people on both sides of this seemingly intractable conflict between Palestinians and Israelis.

Working in the Gaza Strip is like that.

In an instant, calm can give way to violence, chaos and heartache in this sliver of land on the shores of the Mediterranean.

When Israeli pulled troops and Jewish settlers out of Gaza in 2005, we had hoped that it might bring some peace.

But the violence did not stop. Militants continued rocket attacks on Israel, saying they were to avenge Israeli actions in the occupied West Bank. Israel struck back, saying it needed to protect itself. Internal Palestinian strife surged.

When I navigate Gaza's streets, I often think about who is driving in front of and behind me. Are they militants from Islamic Jihad, Hamas, Fatah or one of the other groups fighting Israel? Israeli air strikes often target gunmen in their cars.

Sometimes they miss.

CHAOS Driving at night, I fear that gunmen will stop my car and steal it. Passing Palestinian police stations, I worry I will get caught in a gunfight between rival factions.

More than 300 Palestinians were killed in factional and clan fighting in 2006. Hundreds of cars have been stolen in the past few months alone.

Working from home presents another dilemma.

I have often have to call our Jerusalem bureau with news of air strikes. The explosions terrify my children.

My daughter Dalia, 10, wraps herself around my waist. My son Abdel-Rahman, 5, runs into my arms. My wife Shaheera often sits silent in a chair.

On many occasions, I have raced into my children's bedrooms at night when Israeli planes have flown low over Gaza and set off sonic booms. I want to get there before my children wake up in fright. Sometimes I am too slow and the children rush into my room screaming, weeping and trembling.

What should I do? My job, or calm them? I try to do both.

UPRISING I was born in September 1972, five years after Israel captured Gaza in the 1967 West Asia war, and grew up when it was fully under Israeli military rule.

The first Palestinian Intifada or uprising erupted when I was 16. When two of my brothers were arrested for stone throwing and political activity against the occupation, it ruined my hopes of getting an Israeli travel permit to study science at a university abroad.

So I stayed in Gaza and turned to English literature, often having to take lessons in private homes.

It is difficult to spend a weekend with your family in Gaza these days. The news never stops. It is also often not safe to take your family out of the house. It's your fortress, and your prison, much like Gaza itself.

Until September, when I was granted a permit to visit our office in Jerusalem, the Israeli authorities had not allowed me to enter Israel for seven years.

As is the case for most Gazans, the Israelis at first cited unspecified security reasons for banning me. Few people from Gaza ever enter Israel.

Our only other gateway to the world, the Rafah border crossing with Egypt, is also often closed for security reasons.

When I began working for Reuters in 1993, my wife asked me to find a less demanding job. In the end, she gave up.

As much as I want to leave Gaza sometimes and work elsewhere, the pull of the story is forever strong.

I never go anywhere, not even to bed, without two cell phones and a radio.

And our reporting team is so well known in Gaza that many people don't call me Nidal al-Mughrabi, but Nidal Reuters.

REUTERS