Prayers and defiance in shocked Gaza

An Israeli police officer surveys the damage inside a house after a rocket fired by Palestinian militants in Gaza killed an Israeli in the southern Israeli town of Netivot December 27, 2008.

GAZA (Reuters) - Some policemen recited their last prayers as they lay fatally wounded in the wreckage of Israel's devastating air strikes on the Gaza Strip on Saturday.

Others, their limbs torn off by the explosions, shouted defiance.

Hospital officials said at least 205 people had been killed in one of the bloodiest days for the Palestinians in 60 years of conflict. Nearly half were members of the Islamist Hamas group's security forces. Over 700 people were wounded.

"Allahu Akbar. There is no God but one God," croaked one Hamas policeman lying next to the bodies of his comrades.

The missile struck 40 security headquarters of Hamas, which controls Gaza Strip. Columns of smoke and dust rose over Gaza City.

Windows were shattered all around. Hospital officials said many of the dead were passers by, including 15 women.

The scale of the bloodshed was unprecedented even in an enclave that is only too used to violent death.

"It is a war. Look at the smoke, look at the bodies and the body parts, it is like Afghanistan or Iraq," said Umm Mohammed as she looked over one flattened Hamas office.

Hundreds of people crowded hospitals looking for their relatives. Many dead remained unidentified as some were headless. Health officials appealed for outside help.

"We lack everything, we lack medical equipment, we lack anesthesia, we lack bandages, we lack fuel for ambulance vehicles, we lack medicine, everything," cried Muawiyah Hassanein, head of Gaza's Ambulance and Emergency department.

"What happened was unexpected and our hospitals were neither ready nor prepared to receive such huge numbers of casualties," Hassanein told Reuters.

Palestinians called it the "Massacre of the Black Saturday." The Israeli codename for the operation was "Solid Lead."

Most of the police were killed in two Israeli attacks against security headquarters in Gaza City where graduation ceremonies were under way outdoors, evidence that Hamas was caught totally by surprise.

As morgues ran out of space, many of the bodies were moved into mosques in the city where people arrived to establish the identities of the dead. Many fell unconscious to the ground after they confirmed the identity of loved ones.

Graves were also in short supply. Some families had to return their dead to hospital after finding no room to bury them.

As night fell, the roar of Israeli planes continued overhead, threatening a further escalation as militants launched dozens of rocket attacks into Israeli territories bordering Gaza. A fearful people braced for more violence.

"Eventually they can retake the Gaza Strip, what else they can do? But will that solve the problem? Of course not," said Gaza teacher Ahmed Abu Baha.

(Editing by Douglas Hamilton and Matthew Tostevin)