The streets of the Gaza Strip were almost empty of pedestrians, and institutions and shops closed their doors, with the exception of bakeries and some food stores, which were partially opened, with the intensification of the exchange of missile shelling between Israel and the Islamic Jihad Movement.

Schools and universities have been suspended in Gaza, and government institutions are operating at a minimum according to the emergency system.

Only the horns of ambulances and civil defense can be heard in the various regions of the Gaza Strip, which is inhabited by 2.3 million people, as most of them refrain from leaving their homes for fear of the continuous Israeli warplanes raids.

And the mutual shelling between the armed Palestinian factions and the Israeli army was renewed today (Friday) after a calm that prevailed on both sides of the border for about 12 hours.

Palestinian security sources told Xinhua that the Israeli warplanes launched a series of raids targeting agricultural lands and residential houses in several areas in the north, center and south of the Strip, without causing any injuries, except for material damage and destruction in the targeted places.

Clouds of white smoke were seen in the sky of Gaza as a result of rocket fire from separate areas of the Strip, at a time when flames and black smoke rose over the Strip as a result of the Israeli raids.

The intensive raids came in the wake of the sound of warning sirens this afternoon in the city of Jerusalem for the first time since the start of the current round of tension between Israel and the armed Palestinian factions from Gaza at dawn last Tuesday.

In a statement, the Israeli army announced that it had monitored the launch of two rockets from Gaza towards the Judean Mountains (outskirts of Jerusalem), one of which was intercepted by the David's Sling system, and the second by the Iron Dome system, while the Israeli emergency and ambulance services did not announce any injuries.

The Hebrew public radio also said that for the first time since the outbreak of the current round of escalation, sirens sounded in Beit Shemesh, west of Jerusalem, due to the firing of rockets.

The Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, said in a brief statement, "The Palestinian resistance launches a focused missile strike in two phases towards occupied Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and the enemy's cities and settlements, in response to the assassinations and the continuation of the aggression against the Palestinian people."

In light of the current tension, Palestinian Tareq Ziyad, 30, refused to open his restaurant for the fourth day in the Sheikh Radwan area, north of Gaza City, despite receiving many orders via phone calls from his customers.

"The atmosphere of war is controlling us, and there is no room for us to think about working under fear," Ziyad told Xinhua.

"The priority is to try to reduce the intensity of what is happening to our children who are terrified of what is going on around them," he added.

The same applies to the elderly Abu Al-Abd Saeed, who with his sons kept their home in the town of Jabalia and closed their shop selling electrical appliances.

"There is currently no safe place in Gaza. Terror is spreading among everyone, and the bombing may target anyone (...) We hope that the war will end so we can return to our work," Saeed told Xinhua.

In turn, the Palestinian Asmahan Hassan, who is in her mid-thirties, sat with 4 of her children and her husband in one room, fearing that their house would be bombed nearby.

Asmahan told Xinhua that the situation in Gaza "is not (not) normal, and fear prevents us from even thinking of leaving the house."
The current round of tension began at dawn on Tuesday with sudden Israeli raids, killing 13 Palestinians, including three military leaders in the Islamic Jihad movement, which responded midday Wednesday by firing hundreds of rockets from the Gaza Strip towards Israel, a step adopted by the joint room of the Palestinian factions that includes the Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements.

And the Israeli army spokesman, Avichai Adraei, announced in a statement today that 973 rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel during the current round, last Tuesday.

Adraei added that 296 rockets were intercepted, while the army attacked 254 targets in Gaza.

And with every Israeli raid and anti-missile launch, the feeling of terror and anxiety is perpetuated by the residents of the Strip, which intensifies every evening.

With the onset of darkness, the mutual shelling increases, which results in the sound of huge explosions that spread fear and panic even more, at a time when Israeli reconnaissance planes are flying at low altitude in the sky of the Strip.

Since the beginning of the current wave of tension, Israel has kept the (Kerem Shalom/Kerem Shalom) crossing, the only commercial outlet for the Gaza Strip, and the (Beit Hanoun/Erez) checkpoint, designated for the movement of individuals, workers and merchants from Gaza.

The Palestinian Businessmen Association in Gaza estimated that the direct and indirect financial losses of the local economy amount to nearly 50 million shekels (one dollar equals 3.6 shekels) per day due to the closure of the aforementioned crossings.

Human rights and civil society circles in Gaza have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe as a result of the tightening of the blockade of the Strip, especially the imminent depletion of fuel needed to operate the only power plant, which threatens to exacerbate the deficit in the provision of electricity.

Faced with the difficulties of the humanitarian situation, the Palestinian factions are betting on the continuation of popular support for them in their confrontation with Israel, although some residents express their anger at the repeated rounds of escalation.

Last night, the Al-Quds Brigades, the military wing of the Islamic Jihad Movement, called on the residents of the Strip to climb the roofs of the houses in conjunction with opening the loudspeakers in the mosques to shout “Allah is Greater” and applaud in support of the firing of rocket-propelled grenades.

Activists on social media circulated video clips of families on the roofs of their homes, interacting with the missile barrages that emanated from several areas in the Strip simultaneously.

Yesterday (Thursday), an Israeli was killed and 6 others were injured from the city of Rehovot, in central Israel, near the capital, Tel Aviv, for the first time since the outbreak of the round of tension, after a rocket fired from Gaza hit the building in which he resides.

On the roof of the house of the Palestinian Ali Baroud, in the center of Gaza City, the family of the man in his sixties celebrated the firing of rocket barrages from the city's outskirts towards Israel.

He also heard prayers on a large scale through loudspeakers in a number of mosques in Gaza in support of the rocket barrages fired by the Palestinian factions.

Baroud, 62, told Xinhua while he was staring at the sky, waiting for a new batch of missiles to be launched. .

The man has four children and 17 grandchildren, all of whom live in a four-storey house in the center of Gaza City, which has been damaged in previous times as a result of Israeli raids on targets of the armed factions adjacent to it.

A number of Baroud's sons said as they left the roof of the house, "Despite all our suffering, we will not stop supporting the resistance because we are facing an occupation that is aggressive against us, occupying our land and besieging us."

Yesterday, the Israeli army killed the commander of the missile unit in the Islamic Jihad Movement and his deputy in two separate strikes in Khan Yunis, and continued its attacks on homes and agricultural lands in the Strip, raising the total death toll to 31 during four days of tension.

Palestinian Omar Hamdan, a taxi driver before transporting his customers from Rafah to Gaza, told Xinhua, "It is true that I support the resistance, but the escalation is not necessary (necessary). It is repeated twice or thrice a year."

Hamdan added, "We want to have a decent life without frequent wars and terror surrounding us."

And Israel stopped the cease-fire talks with Gaza after firing rockets towards Jerusalem, according to what the Hebrew public radio reported today, according to a high-ranking Israeli official.