On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, Gaza burns while Jerusalem feasts

As I write this, it is the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year. The shops in Jerusalem are crowded with Israelis buying groceries for meals with family and friends.

On this night, every food has a meaning. Apples with honey are eaten with a blessing for a sweet year. Round challah bread symbolises the cycle of life. Pomegranate is enjoyed with the hope that merits will multiply like its many seeds in the year ahead. Fish heads represent the wish to be the head, rather than the tail, over the coming 12 months.

The streets are heaving with shoppers bearing wine, flowers, fish and meat.

"Where are you going to celebrate?" everyone asks each other excitedly. Later, they will gather with loved ones around a big table dressed with a white cloth to welcome the New Year.

Meanwhile, just a few kilometres away, hell is raining down on half a million Palestinians desperately clinging to their family homes - and their lives - in Gaza City.

The bombing is round the clock, by design. Unmanned, remote-controlled armoured personnel carriers packed with explosives detonate between three and five in the morning. The blanket bombing, or fire belts as they are known in Gaza, starts at six. The quadcopters come at midnight.

Living under fire

Since August, more than 180 of these menacing robotic vehicles have devastated the city, destroying 30 houses with each detonation. Tel al-Hawa, Sheikh Radwan, Tuffah, Jabalia al-Nazla and the Saftawi Street area are among the neighbourhoods reduced to rubble.

Our correspondent, Ahmed Dremly, described the experience of surviving the blast wave.

"Maybe the most terrifying sound in life is that robot detonating," he said.

'Whatever you're doing, when a robot explodes, you stop doing it. Whether you're drinking, eating or walking, you freeze for seconds, unable to comprehend what happened'

"If I feel there will be a blast, I try to turn on something loud so the sound is dispersed. I try to imagine it's coming, so it's not such a sudden shock.

"Whatever you're doing, when a robot explodes, you stop doing it. Whether you're drinking, eating or walking, you freeze for seconds, unable to comprehend what happened.

"You can't believe you're alive. It feels like you're dead, and at the same time, you're waiting for the next robot to explode. For the past five days, the explosions have been consecutive... They detonate two or three robots together.

"These past two days have been the worst since the war started. The bombing and the sound of the tanks moving is more terrifying than I can describe. We are very scared, especially my two sisters and the little children."

Ahmed and his family face agonising decisions about whether to stay or leave. The people of Gaza City have gone through this before. Many were forced to flee south earlier in the war, believing they would return. This time, they know it is permanent.

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Maha Hussaini, our Gaza correspondent, says she is staying on "until the last gasp".

She writes: "The last time you leave the house and shut the door, that's the last time you'll close that door. You won't come back to see it again after that. It's terribly hard, and I'm living in denial, especially now that everyone around me has left and the city is emptying.

"One tries to convince oneself there's still breath, that there's still hope, and we always say 'until the last gasp'. It's become a trending phrase in Gaza: until the last gasp.

"If you ask me now, 'Are you still in Gaza City? When will you leave?' I'll tell you: 'I'll wait until the last gasp'. We don't know what that last gasp is or how long it will be."

War without end

You might expect a New Year's message from the chief of the general staff of the Israeli army to be full of hope. But after two years of war, Eyal Zamir's grim message was that the fighting would continue until the end.

In a letter to his soldiers and officers, Zamir stressed that the army would not stop "until all tasks are carried out and the objectives are fully achieved".

Ahmed is praying for a miracle: "I can't imagine that something could stop this operation, but I still have hope."

Many have already left Gaza City; those who remain are unsure of what to do.

"Even if people want to go to the south, they don't have a place and they know they will live in the streets," Ahmed said.

"The cost from here to the south is about $1,000. No one has this amount of money. If you want a tent, it will cost you another $1,300."

As the daughter of a family that remained in the lands that became Israel in 1948, I have spent my whole life here. I speak perfect Hebrew.

For many years, I enjoyed conversations and arguments with Israeli friends, neighbours and colleagues. There was a time when I would have been a guest at their Rosh Hashanah dinner tables.

But this year, I cannot bring myself to wish them a happy New Year. All I know is that we Palestinians, wherever we are, have to survive this.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Eye.