Gazans count cost of escalating violence

"Why is Palestinian blood cheaper than Israeli blood?" asks Wael Abu Awema, a 40-year-old father of five.
BBC - There have been Israeli attacks on Gaza every day this week. At least 10 Palestinians have been killed, including at least four civilians, two of them children. More than 30 Palestinians have been injured.

"Of course we are worried. My kids are wetting themselves at night when they hear the Israeli air strikes," says Mr Abu Awema.

His eyes are bloodshot and red, as if he also might be losing sleep.

Every day too, Palestinian militants have fired rockets and mortars into Israel, causing danger, fear and anxiety for communities living in range of the strikes.

There is concern on both sides that there could be a further escalation after Wednesday's bomb attack in Jerusalem in which a British tourist was killed and more than 30 people were injured.

No militant group - including Hamas's military wing the Al Qassam Brigades - has said it carried out the bomb attack.

Mr Abu Awema tells me he is not a supporter of Hamas, the Islamist movement that governs in Gaza.

In fact he actively opposes them. He says he has sympathy for the civilians who were targeted in the Jerusalem bombing.

But he says Gazans are all too familiar with the anxiety caused by violence...
Read More