As the Troops Enter, We Fear the Worst

I am not alone in thinking this. U.N. Human Rights envoy Richard Falk declared that what Israel is doing is a crime against humanity. Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mary Robinson, former head of the U.N. Human Rights Commission, have expressed similar views in the past. Israel must be stopped.

It looks increasingly likely, though, that before the missiles stop exploding, we will have more days like last Thursday, when a family that lives across the street came to our house. They had gotten a phone call telling them to evacuate because their home would soon be bombed. Israelis sometimes make these calls, but you can't always be sure what will happen. Some houses are actually bombed after such messages. But some are hoaxes.

Our neighbors stayed with us for a couple of hours before they found out that the threat was just a joke -- a very dark kind of humor.

Then on Friday we got word that my stepdaughter's friend -- a Christian -- had died from wounds she had sustained earlier in the week. Noor spent the day crying.

So many people have left their homes. The people who live near Ismail Haniyeh, the Hamas leader, have fled. The entire neighborhood is empty.

I'm scared, but I'm staying put, though I am fearful of what's next. I'm worried about what will happen next, the serious bloodshed that will surely follow as the Israeli forces come through on land.

Hamas fighters will be battling from homes, in the streets, in the neighborhoods where we remain.

Eyad El-Sarraj, a psychiatrist, is the founder and president of the Gaza Community Mental Health Program and a commissioner of the Palestinian Independent Commission for Human Rights.