ReutersIt had started as a normal night in Gaza, with people up already having their pre-dawn meal in the holy month of Ramadan. After 50 nights of ceasefire, life in the territory had settled into a relative rhythm of calm.
But then the rat-a-tat of gunfire began, and explosions. Then followed the sound of people screaming.
Essam Abu Odeh and his family had been sleeping when the war planes came again.
“Around 02:00 [midnight GMT], we were suddenly awakened by the sounds of heavy shelling,” he told the BBC’s Gaza radio service.
“My daughter woke me up, warning me about the bombs. We quickly took shelter against the walls, fearing that rubble might fall on us.”
Israel’s planes tore in from the north to sweep across the strip, striking Gaza City in the centre and then targets further south in Rafah and Khan Younis.
The blitz on Monday night killed more than 400 people, mostly women and children, local health authorities run by Hamas said. They did not identify the number of combatants killed – Israel says it targeted Hamas commanders.
More than 600 more are injured. Once again, hospitals in the territory were inundated, doctors on night shift battling a sudden influx of injured, many of them children.
Israeli strikes on Gaza – follow live updates
The BBC met the family of one injured man, Ahmad Mo’in al-Jumla, at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. He had been at the Beach refugee camp in al-Ahrar when it was hit.
“We were shocked this area was targeted,” says his sister, noting the whole family couldn’t find him at first.
“From the night until morning, we couldn’t figure out if he was injured or not, because the scene was horrific, and no one had any news – the entire building had collapsed on everyone in that area.”
At 05:00, they pulled him out from under the rubble. He was alive – but was rushed to hospital with fractures and a brain injury.
His family too endured their own ordeal when their neighbourhood was hit. “Suddenly, we found the house collapsing on us, rubble falling from every direction,” his sister said.
“We tried to get out, we wanted to escape but there was nothing. It was night and suddenly there was bombing on the house.”
Reuters“The war resumed abruptly, without warning,” says another Gaza resident M.
He was getting up for his Suhoor, or pre-dawn meal, when his street was struck by gunfire and shelling.
“A sense of terror swept through the area,” he says. “Everyone was filled with fear – unsure of where to go or if we could be displaced again.”
“Fear has once again gripped the people, especially as we are in the month of Ramadan,” he said.
Israel pounded Gaza throughout the morning, the strikes easing as the sun came up.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the attacks, his office said, after Hamas failed to release more hostages or accept US proposals for extending a ceasefire that had held since late January.
Since the first phase of the ceasefire had come to an end earlier this month, there had been fears of the fighting resuming again – especially as talks stalled two days ago.
The White House on Monday night was briefed by Israel before they resumed their attacks.
But those living in Gaza were blindsided. The return of the warplanes shattered what had been two months of a fragile peace.
“I was shocked that the war started again, but at the same time, this is what we expect from the Israelis,” Hael a resident from Jabalia al-Balad told BBC Arabic.
“We were not surprised; we expect this at any moment,” he says about the truce’s collapse. “But the shock is enormous – 200 martyrs [people killed] in moments. As a citizen, I’m exhausted. We’ve had enough – a year-and-a-half to this! It’s enough”, he said.
Before the ceasefire in late January, the war had gone on for 15 months with Israeli airstrikes and bombardments killing more than 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza.
Umm Mohammed Abou Aisha, living in Deir al-Balah in the east, had managed to survive with her mother throughout that period.
But her mother was killed on Tuesday morning. Her last memory is of her entering the kitchen, saying she wanted to make her morning meal.
“My mother woke up as usual to prepare her Suhoor meal, getting ready to fast but not ready for fighting,” she told Reuters news agency.
ReutersThe strike hit their neighbour’s home, blasting the vicinity, she said.
She has questioned the state of the supposed peace. “Life is getting harder, there is no truce or ceasefire.”
“There are snipers [stationed] daily in front of the citizens, continuous strikes. There is nothing of what was agreed upon [in the ceasefire].
Another resident, Mohammed Bdeir, said his daughter was killed – their street was bombed as the whole family was sleeping.
“[We] suddenly woke up on the strike, they hit our neighbours… we found this girl beneath the rubble, we pulled her mother and father from under the rubble.”
He then found his daughter’s body there too, he told AFP news agency.
ReutersSouth-east of Gaza City, Ramez Alammarin, 25, described carrying children to a hospital.
“They unleashed the fire of hell again on Gaza,” he told AFP, adding that “bodies and limbs are on the ground, and the wounded cannot find any doctor to treat them”.
Hospital authorities in Gaza have told the BBC many patients being carried in are suffering severe head injuries and bleeding, burns, fractures.
“The attacks were so sudden that the number of medical staff was inadequate for the scale of these large strikes,” said Dr. Mohammed Zaqout, Director General of Gaza Strip’s hospitals.
He notes there are only seven hospitals able to operate across the territory at the moment, after 15 months of war. And despite the truce, few medical supplies had been allowed into Gaza.
Another doctor described the situation as catastrophic. There’s a severe shortage of medical and surgical equipment, intensive care beds, medications.
“Even the medical staff have been completely exhausted after more than a year-and-a-half of continuous emergency work,” said Dr Muhammad Abu Salmiya.
“We have seen many wounded people lose their lives right in front of us simply because there are no medical supplies or any possible way to offer them care.”
He called Israel’s actions at dawn a “massacre against sleeping civilians in the Gaza Strip”.
The most admissions so far have been at Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis in the south. People were rushing stretchers with the wounded to the hospital.
Bodies covered in white sheets were also taken to the hospital’s mortuary. Families were gathering for funerals in the street.
Essam, the father woken by his young daughter this morning, says he’s begging mediating countries to bring an end to their suffering.
“We do not want war to be resumed. We seek peace so that we can live and sleep without fear,” he told the BBC.