GAZA CITY — Gazans took to the streets on Tuesday night, cheering the thunderous sounds of rockets being fired towards Israel simply days after the Israeli police in Jerusalem raided one of the holiest websites in Islam. Some whistled and chanted.

“Go! Go! Go!” they shouted. “God is with you.”

But on Wednesday morning the cheers had stopped, as Gazans emerged dazed from their houses after what some described as essentially the most intense airstrikes since cross-border Israeli-Palestinian hostilities flared again up earlier this week. After a night time of sporadic strikes, a ultimate barrage lasted one seemingly infinite hour, starting round 6 a.m.

In one neighborhood, close to Zeitoun and Sabra, residents checked their houses and neighborhoods for harm, and desperately sought details about the place the missiles may strike subsequent.

“I felt that the hits were random,” stated Nadal Issa, 27, who owns a bridal store.

Hamas and different militants have been exchanging hearth with Israel since Monday. Dozens of Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, together with at the very least 16 kids as of Wednesday night time, officers stated; in Israel, at the very least six civilians have been killed, together with one baby.

In Gaza, although, some stated they’d by no means felt something as intense because the wave of Israeli strikes that got here Wednesday morning.

Some stated it felt as if blast waves have been hitting their face and physique, as if their very neighborhood was beneath assault. Disoriented, they staggered to home windows to look outdoors.

“My two children woke up, and they asked me, ‘What’s going on?’” Mr. Issa stated. Thinking shortly, he reminded them that the vacation marking the tip of Ramadan was close to. “I told them these are celebrations for Eid.”

But in a interval when Muslims pray for forgiveness and a good coming yr, the cycle of retaliation taking part in out in Israel and Gaza this week has bred bitterness. Mr. Issa recalled standing by a window of his house Tuesday night and watching the rockets take flight.

“I was praying from my heart that the rockets reached the heart of Tel Aviv,” he stated.

Mohammed Sabtie, a 30-year-old motorbike mechanic, was amongst Gazans who left their houses after the airstrikes subsided Wednesday morning to see the harm.

“The sound was very, very horrific,” Mr. Sabtie stated. “It was like a state of war. It was the first time I ever heard anything like this.”

Was he scared? Yes, he stated, but additionally overjoyed to see Palestinians combating again.

“Our ambitions are not war,” Mr. Sabtie stated. “Our ambitions are security and peace. We have to do this. We don’t want to be hit and insulted. We want to hit back.”

As Gazans attempt to reduce danger to their households, they’re conscious that there are few locations within the crowded metropolis to seek out shelter, in order that they decide on little particulars, and luck.

Some go away their home windows open throughout assaults, lest a pane of glass all of the sudden turn into a rush of shards. Many attempt to determine which path essentially the most intense bombardment is coming from, and transfer to a room farthest away. There’s a rush for ground-level residences and rooms.

And then, largely, they attempt to sleep, if they will.

On Tuesday night time, one shopkeeper in an workplace tower was amongst these evacuating after being informed by Israel that the constructing could be focused for an airstrike, he stated. The shopkeeper, who runs a currency-exchange retailer within the constructing and requested to not be recognized, was devastated. He stated he had lately gotten engaged, and went into debt to pay for his wedding ceremony. He feared he would lose all the things.

Hours later, round 3 a.m., his fears grew to become true: The tower was hit. The response was practically on the spot — extra rockets into Israel. The outdated cycle was repeating once more: Rockets carry airstrikes, airstrikes carry rockets.

Then it fell quiet, oddly so, for nearly three hours. One extra likelihood to attempt to sleep.

In one house early Wednesday, that stressed sleep was disturbed by a ringing cellphone. The caller was a Palestinian who had left for Turkey, and he remarked on the relative calm.

“Maybe this is the quiet before the storm,” he stated.

Not lengthy after, the thunder from the morning airstrikes washed over their neighborhood.