Gaza gets 180 minute respite to shop, bury the dead

GAZA (Reuters) - After 12 days of non-stop Israeli bombing, Gaza got a break on Wednesday.

For 180 precious minutes, Israeli warplanes and tanks held their fire, giving 1.5 million shell-shocked residents of the coastal enclave a chance to check on family members, shop for essentials and bury their dead.

Ahmed Abu Kamel, a father of six who lives in the eastern part of the city, said he set out with a brief shopping list: food and milk. "What else can we do in three hours?" he asked.

A Gaza teacher who identified himself as Abu Youssef said he felt like a "prisoner on furlough."

Thousands of angry and frustrated mourners attended open-air funerals in the Jabalya refugee camp, where more than 40 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday when Israel shelled a U.N.-run school.

Some of the dead in Jabalya were buried together because the camp's main cemetery was full and it was too dangerous to look for plots elsewhere.

"Revenge! Revenge!" mourners chanted.

Israel's three-hour halt to "offensive" operations started exactly at 1 p.m. local (6 a.m. EST).

The declared humanitarian corridor gave aid groups a chance to bring in and distribute goods and medicine.

John Ging of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said the three-hour lull was not nearly enough time, calling conditions in the battered enclave "hell on Earth."

The World Food Programme appealed for "breathing space" to resume full-scale distributions.

Many Gaza stores opened their doors for business. Hundreds came but shoppers complained there was little to buy.

Stranded away from home when the Israeli ground offensive started on Saturday, Abu Ali Hassan was able to visit his wife and three daughters for the first time.

He had feared for their lives because he was unable to reach them by telephone, and it was too dangerous for him to travel before.

"Thank God, I found them and they were all alive but scared to death," Hassan said.

At U.N. food distribution centers, tensions were high.

Some desperate people tried to push their way to the front of the queue, fearing they would run out of time and get nothing before the fighting resumed.

One woman in line asked God to strike Israel for what it was doing to the people of Gaza; but only after he had punished Arab leaders who, she said, stood by and let the offensive happen.

"They want to turn us into beggers," she said.

Gaza's streets cleared and, a few minutes after 4 p.m., the bombs started falling again.

(Writing by Adam Entous; Editing by Ralph Boulton)