'I feel like I am trapped here in a cage'

Al Shifa Hospital, the city's main health and trauma centre, is only a short walk from our hotel, so we headed over to see if we could meet patients. We spoke to the Director General of the Hospital, Dr Hussain Ashoud, to try to find out the real human toll of the 23 day long Israeli invasion. However he kept angrily turning the conversation back to politics as he spoke, loudly drowning out Al Jazeera news playing on the television in the background and the sound of the newly arriving doctors being briefed.

There were many foreign doctors walking around the hospital and it was evident that medical personnel from all over the world had dropped what they were doing at home and flown to Palestine to assist.

We were invited to tour some of the wards, meeting with some of the victims of the Israeli onslaught. The head and face of one man was completely burnt during an attack.

The hospital wasn't as busy as we expected it to be, as the majority of the worst cases had already been moved out.

We walked from room to room, speaking to patients and their families about their injuries. One patient told us he was walking to the shop with his friends to buy water and was hit by shrapnel from a nearby bomb explosion.

We met a man coming into the hospital with packs of blood in his hands, donations from Jordan he told us, before rushing off with his precious cargo.

Night was falling when we left the hospital for a quick walk around the streets. There is no main electricity grid, so shops and businesses run on generators. We saw people queuing outside of a bakery and my colleague, Ashraf, started to talk to the people in line. Two women stand beside the door, eating mini pizzas. One of them looked over in my direction and smiled shyly at me. 'Hello', she said in English. She told me her name is Hibba Al Talla.

I walked over to her and began chatting.

She told me today was the first day she went back to work and that her legs were shaking. Ashraf came over and started to video what she was saying. He asked her about her daily life here in Gaza, she said, "I feel like I am trapped here in a cage".

Inside the bakery, men and women queued in separate lines. I went over to the front of the ladies side, where hot, round pita breads were being scooped up as soon as they came off the conveyer belt from the oven.

One woman held a bag of 50. She asked for more, but there was only one allowed per person. I asked her if she has a large family, and she said no, but that they never know when there will be more.

Another woman asked where I am from.

When I told her I come from Dubai, she said her brother is there and would I bring her back with me? I joke, saying I will pack her in by backpack and carry her across the border and all the women laugh at the ridiculousness of the image.

It seems as if everyone here has a Dubai connection. The woman we spoke to outside was born and raised in Dubai, her father worked there. We keep hearing that brothers, uncles, fathers, and friends are either in Dubai working, or have been there in the past.

Sa'ad and Ashraf came into the bakery as well. Saad was upset with me because I came in without telling them and when he couldn't see me, he was worried I had been kidnapped.

"Please tell me when you are going somewhere, I feel responsible for your safety", he told me. I promised him I would be more careful.