Thousands flee Shejaiya

GAZA CITY, July 20 (agencies): They walked in their thousands, barefoot and in their pyjamas, streaming out of the eastern Gaza district of Shejaiya after a night of non-stop Israeli bombing.

They described hours of terror, as tank shells slammed into homes, with no electricity and no way to escape.

They called ambulances, but there was no way for the vehicles to get in under the constant fire.

So in the end, thousands of desperate residents fled on foot at first light, walking two hours or more into Gaza City.

They left behind the bodies of the dead in the streets of their neighbourhoods-in Nazzaz, in Shaaf and in other parts of this flashpoint area between Gaza City and the Israeli border.

Ahmed fled with his wife and sisters-in-law and their children.

His daughters were barefoot and confused, sleepy as they walked into eastern Gaza City, their parents desperately searching for a safe place to take shelter.

"The shelling started last night, around 9pm and it just got worse and worse," he said.

"The bombing was all around us-there was no light, no water, we didn't know what to do."

"We called the emergency services but they said they couldn't reach us, so we decided to leave on foot," he added.

At the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, ambulances arrived every five minutes.

But the wounded and the dead were also brought in by car and truck.

One man came in with his legs sticking out of a rolled-down window.

The injuries were mostly from shrapnel, with one boy peppered with wounds, his arms held out to the side, screaming in pain as he was brought into the hospital.

Many people were coated in a layer of dust that turned their faces grey and stuck to their blood on their clothes.

Doctor Said Hassan was standing outside waiting for the arrivals, after evacuating his family from the frontlines in Shejaiya the day before.

"The ambulances can't reach everyone, the ones who are coming in now were injured hours and hours ago and have either walked or been carried to places where they could be picked up," he said.

"We've been told that there are injured and dead people lying in the streets," he said.

"The is the worst I've ever seen it," added Hassan, 38, who has worked for Gaza's health ministry for the last eight years.

A short-lived humanitarian truce in Gaza's battered Shejaiya neighbourhood appeared to have collapsed Sunday as the Israeli army accused Hamas militants of violating it and said it had "responded accordingly".

"Once more, Hamas breaches ceasefire, this time brokered by the ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross) for a humanitarian hiatus. IDF responding accordingly," army spokesman Peter Lerner said on his official Twitter account in a posting just 40 minutes into the truce.

Meanwhile: The Arab League on Sunday lashed out at Israel for pounding Gaza's Shejaiya district, accusing the Jewish state of "war crimes," and called for an "immediate stop" to its offensive.

More than 60 Palestinians were killed Sunday as Israeli forces bombarded Shejaiya, sending thousands fleeing in the deadliest assault on the Palestinian enclave in five years.

Meanwhile: UN chief Ban Ki-moon will meet President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi in Cairo Monday to discuss Egyptian proposal to end the deadly conflict in Gaza, the foreign ministry said.

More than 400 Palestinians, most of them civilians, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since July 8 as Israel presses its biggest offensive in the coastal strip in five years.