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Inside Gaza, a Landscape Marked by Violent Change
Wounded Palestinian men remove their shirts at Erez crossing before being evacuated to the Israeli side. Israel has kept the crossing closed, leaving hundreds of Palestinians stranded.
(By Emilio Morenatti -- Associated Press)
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"Later, we found this other patient dead in his bed from bullet wounds he didn't arrive with," Sadr said.
Sadr said he could not get medical treatment for himself for several hours while Hamas gunmen surrounded Shifa Hospital.
"They put me in a car and took me to a mosque, where they put a hood on my head," Sadr said. "They beat me and said I was trying to evacuate Fatah fighters from the hospital. Finally, with some phone calls, I proved to them that I was only a doctor on duty at the time."
This city's high-rise apartment buildings became military objectives during the heavy urban fighting. Scorch marks from rocket-propelled grenades began on the eighth floor of one apartment complex near the Preventive Security headquarters, which Hamas took Thursday in a strategic and symbolic victory.
A Hamas gunmen named Abu Barah, 25, strolled through the battered buildings Tuesday afternoon. He said he was a member of the Izzadine al-Qassam Brigades and the Executive Forces, Hamas's military wing and security branch, respectively, which Abbas officially outlawed last week.
Some of the gunmen swept up debris from the buildings, their yellow walls riddled with bullets and rocket-propelled grenade fire. Other men prayed on small rugs in the dusty courtyard.
Entire stories of some buildings were scorched black. There was a burned-out bus on what had been Fatah's training grounds. Forms, documents, military pants and blood-drenched scraps of newspaper littered the complex.
"I think the people who fought here were very angry," Abu Barah said.
He walked down steps to a floor below ground level, and a line of cells stretched for 50 yards before him. He listed the names of several Hamas leaders, some of them dead, who had been held in the tiny rooms. On a hook outside one cell hung a black piece of cloth -- a blindfold he tried on for effect.
"I don't know what we will do with this place," Abu Barah said. "But there are many possibilities now."
