'The first bomb was like being punched by a ghost ...'

THE deep whistle of a descending bomb is unmistakable. It is the sound of death. Just after 11.20am on Saturday I was gulping down coffee before leaving my flat in the west of Gaza City. I was heading for a meeting and had just grabbed my laptop when I heard it. I froze and listened. It seemed to be overhead. Then the building shook sideways. Explosions, some quite close, followed. I rushed to open windows to try to save them from being blown in.

A pressure wave smashed into my body. I felt I had been punched by something invisible, a ghost.

It was the beginning, something unexpected that arrived out of a clear blue sky. Within three days more than 300 of my fellow Gazans would be dead and many more injured.

The police station close by took a direct hit. The shocks knocked the breath out of me and I felt my quest for peace had been reduced to nothing.

I had spent more than 12 years as a working professional in Silicon Valley in California, returning to Gaza to try to make a difference. In May, I presented a paper on reconstruction and economic renewal to a conference. Even then, it seemed possible.

Now Israel's government has decided to traumatise and shock 1.5 million people, using more than 100 tons of explosives already. It is cold in Gaza at the moment and whether power is on does not make much difference since windows are kept open so they do not shatter with an explosion. Sunday night, for the first time, the house shook horizontally after one blast. It was like an earthquake. It made me think that perhaps the Israelis are using a new weapon. The target was a government guesthouse two blocks away.

If you start running out of food you fear going out to try to buy something in case your throat is torn out by shrapnel. A similar fate has befallen many in the past three days. And if you do risk it, you find there's nothing open, nothing to buy.

We have a generator that I keep on to get news from CNN, the BBC, AlJazeera, but overhead drones firing missiles distort the picture. Even the radio suffers from interference, reinforcing the sense of isolation.

On Saturday morning, I heard death coming, but on Monday night I smelled it. Raids less than a kilometre away targeted a complex of ministries and the Islamic University, sending a cloud of dust mixed with the smell of a detonation. Not only was I shocked and traumatised, but the deadly scent would not leave my last refuge, my home. It no longer feels like that.

On Tuesday morning, I received a call from the Gaza Community Mental Health Programme. Its centre was badly damaged. Gaza's medical services are in disarray, ambulances have been disabled and many doctors are among the civilians killed and injured. Psychiatrists and psychologists who should now be helping people are among the victims.

I never supported the policy of firing rockets into Israel. But I do understand why it happened. The rockets are a symptom of the desperation Gazans felt as Israel maintained its full control over all crossing points, the sea and the airspace. Israel has kept the Gaza Strip largely under siege, keeping supplies at dangerously low minimums, even when no rockets were fired. How could a moderate argue against the rockets and in favour of dialogue now?

Since Saturday, it has become glaringly evident how Israel's government seems to have lost respect for the people of Gaza, even as enemies. I am an independent, pro-peace, civilian who truly feels that the fundamentals of my life are being chipped away bit by bit. I am not being targeted personally, but my wellbeing and ability to live is being targeted.

Where is the Quartet, the seekers of peace in the Middle East, now? Where is Tony Blair? Gaza's closure, boycott, siege, blockade and unfolding war have got us to a point that can no longer be articulated. Ordinary people are longing for peace but are unable to find it anywhere. Politicians are vying for power and influence but are not likely to achieve it through violence. Something major is wrong when morals that protect the welfare of ordinary people are lost in between; and I mean the welfare of Israeli and Palestinian people equally. Now, slowly coming out of shock, I think about how Israel's commanders, and its uninformed citizens, seem to no longer to understand that Palestinian spirit truly longs for peace. They should know that there is also formidable endurance here, especially in the face of what many feel is an unjustifiable and disproportionate aggression and humiliation.

It is this spirit that enabled me to withstand the sound of death as it approached; the thrust and thick whistle of the descending bomb that hit a target next to where I live on Saturday.

Tonight is new year's eve. At any other time, parties would be planned, there would be celebrations and firecrackers. They, at least, will not be needed.

●Sami Abdel-Shafi, 39, is co-founder of the Emerge Consulting Group, which has been working on plans for economic renewal and reconstruction in Gaza.