Palestinians inspect a damaged house destroyed by an Israeli air strike last night, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. (Hatem Omar, Maan Images)

Abu Luaye Zaanin and his family have not left their home on the outskirts of Beit Hanun since the Israeli Army launched an incursion into the northern Gaza town early Wednesday. "The Israelis are shooting at anything that moves," he says.

They are not alone--most residents of this town have stayed off the streets since the start of "Operation Autumn Clouds."

Israeli tanks are posted at all the entrances to the town, whose streets have become battlefields between militants and Israeli soldiers. Only the occasional ambulance drives in and out, sirens wailing, to take victims of the clashes to hospital.

"For two days we haven't moved from here," says Abu Luaye's wife Fatima, surrounded by her three young daughters. "We all sleep in the living room. We are afraid to go upstairs or to the porch on the other side of the house. We are scared that they'll see us."

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Abu Luaye gets up to get a pot of steaming tea.

"It is one of the most difficult incursions that we've seen. During the previous ones, they didn't occupy the whole city. Today they are everywhere," he says to the sound of a nearby explosion.

"This morning they killed one of our neighbors, Diab Bassiuni, on the corner of the street. He went out to get some water and they killed him. He was 70 years old. He wasn't armed," Fatima says.

She gets up, carefully sticks her head outside the door and points to blood smears on the ground a dozen meters away: "Look - that's where he died, may his soul rest in peace."

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