GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — A two-hour humanitarian truce was declared to evacuate the dead and wounded from the Shajaiya neighborhood. It was scheduled from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Sunday, July 20, after a long night of heavy shelling by Israeli tanks. Israeli occupation forces have been randomly and continuously shelling the neighborhood, leaving at the time of this writing 400 wounded and 72 dead, according to the Ministry of Health. The search for other civilian casualties is continuing.

Hardly an hour passed before the truce collapsed and we heard the Israeli shelling start up all over again. It seems that the truce means nothing to the Israeli forces, and neither does the bloodshed.

We managed to enter the neighborhood along with reporters and ambulances during the truce. The rescue crews were able to pull some bodies out from under the rubble of houses. The people, who were holding bags filled with their belongings, had been trying to hide, but the shells took their lives anyway.

We entered Beltagy Street in Shajaiya. The houses were empty, most of them shelled or burned. We saw one faraway resistance fighter, walking alone, dressed in black and coming from the front line. The few people still alive were coming out of their homes, while others returned to their houses during the truce to collect their belongings.