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Excerpts:
I used to say we would never leave our home, but when you see everyone else on the move, how can you stay? Barely a week since my father was killed by an Israeli air strike on our small northern Gaza farm as the ground invasion began, we were facing another terrible dilemma. I thought of the Samouni family, killed last week while sheltering in a house together, and decided we had to go.
I took Alaa's jewellery, my laptop and phone, my notes and papers, and some clothes. My mother, sisters and their children drove away to take shelter at my sister's house. I walked with the people in the street.
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Well, we fled our home because of the militants – or terrorists, as the Israelis call them – but now they were dropping the flyers here too. Gaza is a small place and the Israelis have shut the borders, so we can't escape. Are they simply trying to terrify us further?
In the midst of the chaos, I managed to get Alaa to see a nurse, and then to the hospital yesterday. The nurse said Alaa is going into the early stages of labour. Her blood pressure is slightly up, and she's dizzy.
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There are fewer rockets being fired across the border into Israel, and we've heard that six Hamas leaders have fled to Egypt by tunnel.
But what they have achieved has been at the expense of the Palestinian civilians. Hundreds of children have been killed or injured. They have seen their parents terrified and powerless to protect them. In the future, who will they turn to for protection?
Even if the warplanes are gone by the time our baby arrives later this week, what Israel has done in the past two weeks will keep the flames of this conflict alive for generations to come.
