I talked to a man named Hossam. He poured all his savings, ten-thousand dollars, into his flat. Now he may lose it. He believes his home could be one of the hundreds in Rafah that Israel has marked for destruction. Hossam's flat has already been hit by a tank shell. As we looked at the gaping hole torn in the side of his guest room, he pulled a piece of shrapnel from the wall.

Hossam's wife is pregnant and they have nowhere to go. He says he won't leave until the last moment. But he has moved out almost everything he owns. The television, clothes, carpets and furniture - it's all been stored with friends and relatives in different parts of town. In bare and echoing rooms, Hossam and his wife are waiting for the return of the bulldozers.

The Israelis would say that people like Hossam wouldn't have these problems if Palestinian fighters didn't repeatedly launch attacks on the army from houses on Rafah's fringes. But many ordinary people here regard the demolitions as a kind of collective punishment.