CRI听力:People Suffer as Israel-Gaza Tensions to Escalate

With tensions at a boiling point between Israel and the Gaza Strip, ordinary people from both sides are struggling to cope with the situation.

CRI's Qizhi has more.

Standing in her home in Sderot, a city in southern Israel, Alice recalls the rocket which hit her apartment last week.

"It happened last Wednesday, one thirty in the morning. We didn't make it to the safety room and there was an explosion and the house was filled with smoke. All of the windows were shattered. The girls were crying and screaming. Now they don't want to go out any more."

Sderot is located less than a mile from Gaza.

Rockets fired from Gaza can reach the city within 15 seconds.

Amid the heightened Israeli-Palestinian tensions, hundreds of rockets and mortars have been launched from Gaza into southern Israel.

The situation became even worse after nine Palestinians were killed Sunday night in Israeli air strikes.

Over 100 rockets were launched from Gaza on Monday alone.

Israeli Defense Forces are adding more troops into southern Israel, though the Israeli security cabinet has announced it isn't planning a ground offensive into Hamas-controlled Gaza.

However, the Israeli side says it is going to step up its air strikes.

Mukhaimar Abu Saada, a university professor in Gaza, says he believes Hamas is using the situation for its own ends.

"Maybe they are calculating their cards and they believe that a new cycle of violence with Israel will improve the situation right now politically and at all level in Gaza."

The escalation of violence is putting a lot of pressure on the people living in Gaza.

Adnan Abu Hanse is with the UN's Relief and Works Agency in Gaza.

He says a ceasefire is what's needed.

"The situation in Gaza is very bad and deteriorating hour after hour. Now the people here in Gaza are in a great panic. They think that the war is coming very soon. "

However, Doctor Uri Rosset, an Israeli expert in Mideast affairs, says brokering a ceasefire will depends on a number of things.

"First, whether Hamas decides to have a ceasefire. Second, whether the smaller organization will obey the orders from Hamas. And third, if they don't obey, whether Hamas will put pressure on them to obey. And also it depends on the retaliation of Israel. "

Israeli strikes on Monday have left 9 Hamas members dead.

This has prompted Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to call on Israel to stop its strikes in Gaza.

For CRI, I'm Qizhi.