MIDDLE EAST: Gaza has gone back to the not too distant bad old days. It is the Gaza whose skies buzz with the sounds of pilotless Israeli reconnaissance drones and missile-firing helicopters.
It is the Gaza where masked Palestinian militants launch home-made rockets at Israeli towns and settlements; where mosque loudspeakers blast bursts of Koranic verses in memory of the latest batch of "martyrs", and funeral tents spring up like fungi in the dusty dirt-strewn streets.
And after a bloody few days which have left the IsraeliPalestinian truce agreed in Egypt five months ago in tatters, ordinary Gazans now wait and worry.
Israeli soldiers were yesterday poised to launch a major ground operation in the coastal strip, with defence minister Shaul Mofaz threatening a "massive, prolonged and intricate" military strike if the Palestinian Authority does not curb militants behind some 100 rocket salvoes targeting Israelis in the past four days.
And yet the rockets and mortar rounds kept coming. Five people were wounded, two seriously, in two separate mortar attacks yesterday on the Neveh Dekalim neighbourhood of Gush Katif, the coastal enclave's main Jewish settlement block.
The attacks came hours after an Israeli army sniper shot dead Saeed Seyam, a commander of Hamas' military wing, in his home in the southern Gazan town of Khan Younis, bringing to eight the number of Hamas militants killed since Israel revived its controversial policy of so-called targeted assassinations of suspects last Friday with two separate aerial strikes.
The Israeli army also said it shot a gunman approaching the fortified settlement of Netzarim in central Gaza yesterday afternoon. Later in the day, Palestinian security sources said an Israeli drone fired two rockets at a car in the northern Gaza Strip carrying three Hamas militants who managed to escape unhurt.
The bloodshed of the past few days, including a Palestinian suicide attack which killed five Israelis, comes just weeks before Israel's scheduled evacuation of all of Gaza's 8,000 Jewish settlers.
Israel is adamant that this pull-out will not happen "under fire" from Palestinian militants who seek to claim it as a retreat and a victory for armed resistance.
The violence has effectively brought to an end the "calm" agreed in Egypt last February. Yet all sides remained reluctant yesterday to officially concede the demise of the truce ahead of a visit this week by US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice in a bid to defuse the crisis.
"We are hoping that the Palestinians will once and for all come through and follow through on the commitments undertaken in Egypt to curb terror. We don't consider that to be null and void," said David Baker, an Israeli official.
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas is under pressure from Israel to stop militant attacks, which puts him at odds with Hamas. In a televised address on Saturday, Mr Abbas called on all Palestinian factions to keep the truce. "We are not going to allow anyone to gamble with our national cause."