Israel Gaza: 'I walked my kids past explosions and rotting corpses'

"We left in such a hurry. We were in the middle of baking some bread and realised the houses opposite us were being bombed, one by one. I knew it would soon be our turn. We had packed some bags in case this happened but everything was so rushed we forgot to take them. We didn't even shut the front door.

We had waited to leave because we didn't want to move my elderly parents and we had taken years to save up to build our house in al-Zeitoun, but in the end we had to go. My baby son, Omar, died there in November 2012, killed when shrapnel hit our house in another war with Israel and I couldn't risk losing any more children.

I knew that in the south there was no electricity, no water and people had to queue for hours to use a toilet. But in the end, grabbing just a bottle of water and some leftover bread, we joined thousands of others making the dangerous journey down the Salah al-Din road to the south, where Israel said it was safe".