News stories by Eva Bartlett, page 5

Few outside of Gaza would consider its history much beyond the decades of Israeli occupation. But Gaza is a historical treasure house. Many of those treasures are now in Israeli museums, and those that remain are becoming difficult to preserve due to the Israeli siege.

'Sometimes, for a day or two we don't even have bread, nor flour to make bread. There's a store nearby that, when we are truly desperate, lets us take a bag of bread or something simple, on credit. I owe them a lot of money for the food I've brought from them, but I still can't pay them.'

'We haven't had a single visit yet through Ramadan, what kind of zoo doesn't get visitors during holidays?' asks Mahmoud Barghoud, 22, co-creator of the Marha zoo.

With power cuts up to 16 hours to full days, a soaring heat wave and unbearable humidity, the Israeli-led siege on Gaza is but one of many factors leaving Ramadan miserable for the majority of Palestinians in Gaza.

In a bright and spacious classroom, with plants overflowing in the courtyard outside, six students lean forward at their desks looking at the 10-digit addition they are asked to make. One student stands before the numbers on the chalkboard and a red and yellow-beaded abacus. But her attention is on the abacus she visualises in her mind.

'It's been days without electricity and water. We can't do anything, and it's unbearably hot now.' Abu Fouad, 83, speaks of the power cuts plaguing all of the Gaza Strip.

Outside the battered Civil Defence station in northern Gaza's Jabalia region, Mohammed Zidan, a seven-year veteran of fire-fighting and rescue services, stands on crutches in front of battered Civil Defence vehicles.

Sa'id Hillis, 60, has kept bees since he was a boy. Until the Israeli attacks changed his business.

At precisely 12 noon on a Thursday afternoon, among the rolling sandy hills in southern Gaza, a controlled explosion destroys another round of white phosphorous shells left in Gaza following the 2008-2009 Israeli war on Gaza.

Life can be hard working in these tunnels, and it is always at risk. But many have no choice but to work in them, particularly since mid-2007, when Israel and Egypt, with the help of the international community, imposed a siege of staggering severity on the 1.5 million humans in the Gaza Strip.