GAZA, March 1 (Reuters) - Under the most intense Israeli bombardment in years, the people of Gaza took cover on Saturday, some comforting children caught in the firing line, many saying the onslaught may bolster support for Israel's Hamas enemies.
"We are living in the middle of the battle zone. We wanted to flee the house but we've been trapped since last night," 21-year-old Rami Mohammed Ali said by telephone from his home in Jabalya town as explosions and gunfire thundered outside.
"Rockets and missiles are whistling by all the time and the building has been shaken by mines the Palestinians are setting off against the Israeli soldiers who are invading," he said.
"My little nephews have been crying the whole time."
The area, in the north of the Gaza Strip, has been at the heart of ground combat between Israeli troops and Islamist militants who have continued to fire rockets from around Jabalya into Israeli towns -- the reason Israel says it is attacking.
Mohammed Ali, who lives with his brother's family and sister, said: "We've had a dilemma over which room is safer. In the end we all squeezed into the inner hallway, like sardines."
It is an experience Israelis say has been shared by thousands of their citizens for months in border towns like Sderot and, since Hamas began using longer-range rockets, has now started to disrupt life in the city of Ashkelon.
Palestinians and critics of Israeli tactics say the response to random rocket fire that has killed three Israelis in a year -- the most recent on Wednesday -- is disproportionate.
In the past four days, 95 Gazans have been killed, dozens of them civilians, including children as young as six months. On Saturday alone, 30 civilians were among 60 people killed in the bloodiest day since a Palestinian uprising began in 2000.
POPULAR SUPPORT
Israel accuses Hamas and its allies of using civilians as cover and blames them for the suffering of Gaza's 1.5 million people, who have been living under a tightened Israeli blockade since the Islamists seized control of the 45 km (30 mile) sliver of coast in June from the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
It has hoped the hardships might weaken popular support for Hamas, which won a parliamentary election two years ago. But those under fire in Gaza said that tactic risked backfiring.
"Palestinian gunmen are firing from the street nearby," Mohammed Ali said from Jabalya. "But I guess they have no other choice but to fight from wherever they can.
"Many houses have been hit by tank shells and gunfire from the Israeli army. As a civilian, I wonder if Israel is really after rockets or is just punishing the population in general."
While daily life ground to a halt in northern areas like Jabalya and Beit Hanoun, the main city of Gaza, a few kilometres (miles) south, was unusually quiet as people stayed indoors.
Inside his downtown music store, Goma Hassan said: "They wanted to bring Hamas down. But by massacring people they can only strengthen Hamas because ordinary people will identify more with them as people who are fighting against the occupation.
"The rockets can do little harm to the Israelis and today no one is blaming the militants because it has become clear to them that Israel is using them only as a pretext."
As people clustered around television sets showing images from the frontline on the Hamas-run local channel, police urged civilians to clear the streets. Ambulances sped through the city and the sound of heavy machineguns rattled across Gaza.
Mohammed Zaki, speaking in his clothing store in the city centre, said: "This is really war. Do not you see the images of children and women torn apart? Did women and children fire rockets? These are sad days and painful ones to everyone in Gaza. No food, no money, no work and today no security." (Editing by Alastair Macdonald)
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