Unexpected revelations on a night out in Gaza

The social and moral fabric of Gazan society remains strong despite its people having to battle through a harsh and unjust existence.

Dusk falls in Gaza City and I'm walking the streets looking for some food. It's getting dark and I know that soon the whole city will shut down. Only a few generators power essential public buildings - electricity and water have been out for several days.

There's a man behind me, walking briskly in my direction. I can feel his presence, his dark long overcoat casting a large shadow in front of me. His footsteps are getting louder. I pick up pace, worried now about my own safety. The street is empty - no sign of life - except for the two us. I feel him brush past my shoulder.

"Salam Alaikum," he says softly, and then walks hurriedly into the night.

Gaza City should be the gangland of the Middle East. It should be festering with crime.

The city's destroyed buildings, now piles of rubble on every street corner, are testament to a battered infrastructure, waiting to be exploited by lawbreakers. But, amazingly, it isn't.

Apart from the continual threat of war, Gaza City is one of the safest places I have been. I am among the few journalists who managed to get in before the ceasefire. And the first thing I see is that people here have no time to fight among themselves. There are weary faces everywhere; occasional laughter between friends belies a deep-rooted feeling of helplessness and submission to a harsh, unjust fate.

"Life changes by the minute, better get used to it," an old man tells me.

We're standing in a long queue - there are 40 men in front of me - at one of the few functioning ATMs in Gaza. It's orderly, even though we have been there for close to an hour. There's no pushing or shoving, no arguing. In the distance are the heavy, dull thuds of tank shells and the crackle of small arms fire. No one reacts, only waiting patiently for their money.

Although their physical world is destroyed, the social and moral fabric of their lives is as strong as it has ever been.

Some say this is down to Hamas. A day after the war, they made sure civil servants were back out on the streets sweeping away the debris from the air strikes, and uniformed traffic police were on all the city's major intersections.

But perhaps it is more to do with the fact that Gaza's citizens want a normal life just like everybody else - and they are clever enough to know there are bigger enemies to deal with.

I carry on my quest for food, armed with my shekels. I feel uneasy looking down at Israeli currency in my hand, the faces of its early politicians staring back at me.

All the shops are closed, boarded up. There is little liquidity in Gaza, and no one really wants to spend the little money they have.

Blackened, half-destroyed signs above clothes' shops, restaurants, and money exchanges reflect an ambitious, forward-looking cadre of young businessmen in Gaza who want to forget war and become successful. For reasons beyond their control, they don't have that chance anymore.

I get an SMS on my mobile phone. Some friends of mine are having dinner at a hotel restaurant overlooking the Gaza City beach.

Gaza's beach. I smile to myself, and think about parasols and sun beds; children building sand castles; people throwing large, inflatable balls at each other in the water.

But, incredibly, there are signs along the undeveloped coastline of attempts at tourism.

A couple of high-rise hotels, cafes and restaurants face the wintry cold Mediterranean - proof of a decayed, but bold vision of what Gaza could be if there is peace. For now, at least, the bullet-holed facades of these buildings tell a different story.

A little later, I'm back at my hotel filing the day's video footage to be sent to Dubai. I have a Thuraya satellite, enabling me to beam my work back to the office. It's 2a.m. and I'm sitting with my laptop in the car park, next to the street, the satellite pointing up into the night's sky.

I feel safe. A group of men are huddled together on the other side of the street, talking and smoking. They walk up to me and ask me what I'm doing. Our conversation takes a circuitous route - the war, Dubai, marriage, love, dead family members.

There's a feeling of togetherness amongst total strangers; the feeling that everyone is in the same boat, struggling against the same forces. It's cathartic for them, and I'm happy to oblige.

It's astonishing that the Gazans have managed to survive for so long without an outlet. The borders of their land need to be opened to the outside world - but the ones that thwart their imagination must be broken down as well.