WITNESS: Two weeks under fire in Gaza

By Nidal al-Mughrabi

GAZA (Reuters) - Voices get loud and excited over the radio Reuters news crews use in Gaza to call in the latest information. Some people complain there are no "Western reporters" inside. But we all work here for Reuters.

After two full weeks of bombardment we are all worried about our families but we work and work the story. We hope it will stop.

"They bombed a car in Beit Lahiyah," says one colleague working in northern Gaza. "Three dead arrived in Shifa hospital," says another in Gaza's largest hospital. "Several people injured when Israeli planes bombed the tunnels," says a third from southern Gaza Strip near the border with Egypt.

I field these calls in our office where we have duct tape crosses on every window to limit flying glass if a strike is too close. Still, the largest window in the hall was blown out.

We have a fixed camera on our high-rise building but our cameramen avoid pointing their cameras from the windows, in case they are mistaken for weapons.

Such mistakes were given as the reason a U.S. tank blasted our Baghdad bureau in 2003, killing and wounding colleagues, and for an Israeli tank killing our colleague here in Gaza, Fadel Shana, nine months ago.

The camera can show the blue Mediterranean sea a few blocks to the west, or point the other way to where Israeli ground forces are closing in, perhaps little more than a kilometer away. At night it used to show bright lights and traffic.

Now it is empty streets and a few cold electric lights. Nothing much moves after dark these days. And we choose, for safety reasons, not to stay in the office overnight. We look after our families and keep in touch with work by phone.

We all get to the office around 9 a.m -- typically about 10 of us, with another dozen working in other parts of the Strip. The strikes have usually been going on for a few hours by then. We call information into Jerusalem where colleagues have been updating our main report around the clock. The updates go on all day long.

I often have no time to write up stories myself. It all moves so fast.

Inside Gaza, we use text messages to communicate. We have to monitor local television and radio stations because they are often first with developments that we race to check. Those checks are essential: a mix of confusion and propaganda accompanies any war, so cross-checking to ensure readers understand at least the sources of information is a safeguard.

EVERY DAY A NEW LIFE

Every day is a new life written for me and for my family, and for the team. Hardly any place in the whole Strip has been spared shelling and air strikes. The heart of the city of Gaza has been hit several times.

Some areas seem to have been hit simply because a Hamas policeman walked nearby, or some militants were detected at a street corner by the Israeli forces. The high-explosive attack that follows can be devastating, taking out not only targeted people but a house or some passers-by.

The movement of our crews is restricted to hospitals and major strikes at places that are important, or where we think there may have been a high death toll. It is simply too dangerous to do otherwise. We cannot be with Hamas leaders or fighters, that would be too great a risk.