Gazans Fear Crisis After Four Days of Blockade

On Monday, Hamas officials urged neighboring Egypt to open its Rafah crossing into the Gaza Strip to allow supplies to enter. Egypt has kept the crossing closed since June, in solidarity with Abbas's government in the West Bank.

There were signs Monday that the blockade was eroding popular support for Hamas.

The movement organized a march by children and medical workers Monday to protest the blockade. The march consisted almost entirely of young boys waving Palestinian flags as they streamed through Gaza City alongside a few Hamas officials and other adults.

Few people along the route joined the march or even appeared to look up as they went about on foot, bicycles and donkey carts, or in the relatively few automobiles still on the road, to search for food.

Wooden stands with cauliflower, tomatoes and other goods grown in Gaza still appeared on street corners. Boys with donkey carts offered fruit brought in earlier from Israel. Meat was twice the price it was 10 days ago.

With some bakeries closed, the normal five-minute wait for bread grew to an hour at one of the bakeries open Monday.

"People say this all started after George Bush visited," observed Hisham al-Ashrami, 31, speaking over his shoulder as he scooped freshly baked loaves off a conveyor belt and into his customers' plastic sacks. The line of people waiting for bread snaked out the door. "They say he gave Israel the green light," Ashrami said.

Other Gaza residents echoed his comments, suspecting a link between Bush's visit to the Middle East this month and the Israeli crackdown on Gaza.

"Why do you think that is?" Ashrami said. "These are all civilians here," he said, gesturing at the bundled-up men, women and children crowded before his bread trays.

He estimated the bakery had enough flour left for three days.

Haya al-Serraj, 25, left the shop with a sack stretched to bursting by loaves of bread for her extended family of 13.

The family still has enough food but only two boxes of candles -- eight in all, Serraj said.

"Enough for two days, I hope," Serraj said cheerfully, then shook her head. "I don't think so."

Serraj plays games with her brother and sister, ages 2 and 3, to distract them during nights without heat, lights or TV, she said. Last week, when Israeli airstrikes were heaviest, she tried to soothe the children, she said.

"But you can tell, as much as you sing them songs and play with them, they must still be starting to figure out what's going on," she said. "They already know. They know this isn't normal."