I can hear the explosions of the rockets. We also see the smoke when we look out the window. There is no other place to go, there is no safe place in Gaza. So we stay at my uncle's house and pray. We are used to it. During the last war in the winter 2008/2009 the Israelis even bombed a UNRWA school. Until then, we thought we were safe in the buildings of the UN or in schools.

My uncle's house is in Sabra, west of Gaza City in the Gaza Strip. There's no shelter, so we all stay together in one room downstairs. We are about 20 people here. Uncle and aunt, their children, some are already married and have children. At night nobody sleeps, everyone is so scared.

For me it is a particularly bad nightmare. Again and again, I see in my mind how our house collapsed on us during the last war of the Zionists in January 2009. My father, my brother and my sister died infront of my eyes. Next to our house is the "Islamic Center", maybe they wanted to hit it and destroyed our house by mistake. I myself was also buried under the rubble, but I could crawl out of the house, I could not walk because my right leg was crushed. I wanted to get out of the house to get help, but it was pitch dark outside and noone on the street after the attack. I crawled into another house and fainted. Two days later the neighbors found me, they thought I was dead. I was almost dead because I had lost so much blood.

I still limp. I have pain in my leg. There have been repeated infections. A few months after the Gaza war, a Jewish man from Morocco has invited me to visit his country to get out of Gaza. The government supported me with medical help. Then a French jewish woman contacted me, she said I should go to the International Court in The Hague to get justice for my family’s death. She helped me with lawyers and the process is still not finished. Israel will have to pay compensation.

There will probably never be peace between us and Israel. Whether Fatah or Hamas rules us does not seem to make a big difference. Under Fatah it was not good, and Hamas does not make things any better. The "Arab spring" meant hope for change, for something new. But we need a dramatic change here. A change of government in Israel alone will not change anything, I'm afraid. The Zionists always break their promises, you can not trust them. Just today, they said there is a truce. But the earth trembles from the missile strikes.

Now I hear the sirens of an ambulance. Someone must have been hit. I became more religious since I have seen my family die before my eyes. How is it possible, that we have to live like this? We live in constant fear for our lives. Every moment a rocket can hit us.

17 year old Amira al Karam lives in Gaza. The bombs in recent days are a double nightmare for her. In the Israeli operation 2009 her father, her brother and sister died infront of her eyes.