Last Tuesday evening, at about 6.30pm everything was calm in Abasan al-Kabira, on the south-eastern outskirts of Khan Younis in Gaza. For once the buzzing of the drones had died away, and there had been no sound of explosions for hours.
Like many other children, Rita Abu Hammad, a bright and playful eight-year-old, was standing in front of the school that had been her family’s home for weeks, watching the other children’s games, the traders at their ramshackle stalls, the adults talking, the teenagers trying to get an internet connection or lining up to pay a few shekels to charge phones at a small electricity supply point. In a tent nearby were her three brothers, sister and their mother, Rima Abu Hammad.
