The Israeli aerial attacks on Gaza show no sign of relenting, and in Gaza City there is now street fighting. In this post bloggers describe the fear experienced when Israeli soldiers arrive in the neighbourhood, explain how important prayer has become, and emphasise the need to keep telling the world what is going on. Prof. Said Abdelwahed, who teaches English at Al-Azhar University, explains at Moments of Gaza how he is managing to send out information: One friend of mine sent to me from Europe asking how do I manage to send e-mails in the middle of this situation and continuous fight. At first I remained for 15 days without electricity and with little drinking water. Mobile phones were broken except and hardly for sending SMS. Telephone lines remained okay for the whole time but there were static lines at times. During those days I used a small generator to operate my laptop. Three days back, the electricity company maintained some transformers and wires so that we had electricity again. We pumped water to a reservoir upstairs! However, it is still that the electric power shuts off between now and then; some other times we receive electricity for 2-3 hours, and other times the electric current continues for 10 hours or more. Thus, I send my e-mails. … My priority is to catch any opportunity to contact the world. In another post he updates us on the situation: My family and I are okay but stressed. Yesterday's early morning's ground and air attacks on our neighbourhood was really tough. Battle lasted for five hours! The Israeli army killed 14 including 2 children, demolished by their bulldozers one home of Sweerky family, destroyed plants and trees in a nearby agricultural land, destroyed a mosque minaret, burnt one home of al-Jarwsha family. My children were scared to death; they screamed and crumbled together in one room. I expected the Israeli tanks to move deeper into the neighbourhood; army tanks and special forces were in the second street from me! Electricity was shut off and homes and streets were in total darkness! Dozens of families moved out of their apartments panicked. They left from back streets! Because I was not sure of what may be next; in such situations no one can tell how the soldiers will behave when they reach! Thus, in an early step and to calm down my children, I deleted all my messages to my friends about the situation in Gaza! Forty people died in the day before yesterday. Last night was a night of bombing from tanks and artillery; it continued to this morning too. Mobile phones can hardly operate, but sometimes we can send mobile short messages to know about the safety of each other. […] I have just received a mobile message from my neighbour who lives in the fifth floor (I live in the fourth floor) in which he wishes me and my family to remain safe! To tell you the truth, I was so sad to lose my diaries of the ongoings in Gaza, but this morning with the electricity back, I saw my messages on the internet blogs. […]. In a way, it tells historical moments! Laila El-Haddad, whose parents are in Gaza, blogs at Raising Yousuf and Noor: I receive the dreaded 9pm call from my father. My heart skipped a beat- late night calls always bear bad news. […] I learn that my cousin's father-in-law has been hurt. His house in northern Gaza was hit by Israeli forces, then bulldozed to the ground. He was arrested, blindfolded and tortured – including made to fall off stairs, fracturing several ribs. He then had to walk an hour to Gaza City's Sheikh Ijleen neighbourhood. His wife was also forced to leave in her pajamas in the middle of the night and walk alone to the city. I talk to my father until the bombing subsides – until another hour. Sometimes we don't say anything at all. We simply hold the phones to our respective ears and talk in silence, as though it were an unfamiliar technology. As though I can shield him from the hell being unleashed around him for those few minutes. However absurd it sounds, we feel safe somehow; re-assured that if something happens, it will happen while we stand together. In another post she describes how the residents of Gaza have nothing left but prayer: The fear is salient; it is suffocating; it is in the air, friends say, and no one knows what's coming next, and there is no where to turn to except up in the Heavens above. And so many people in Gaza have taken to doing just that: they are waking up for special pre-dawn prayers qiyam il layl in the “last third of the night” – a window of time when believers feel especially close to God and when it is said He is especially close to our calls upon Him, and supplications and prayers are most likely to be answered.