Palestinian children return to Gaza City beach - PHOTO

Two days into the latest truce between Hamas and Israel, boys and girls paddled in the surf and fishermen dragged their nets through the warm waters of the eastern Mediterranean.Looking out across the beach and the sea, pictures of the scene could almost be depictions of a tucked away resort. But pan 180 degrees and the devastation of the Gaza Strip would be all too apparent.Four weeks ago this very beach was the scene of an atrocity that shocked the world when Israeli sailors killed four young boys playing hide-and-seek among the fishermen's huts of Gaza City's modest harbour.As an explosion ripped through a beach shack in full view of international journalists watching from their nearby hotel, reports gave an account of four ragged, tiny silhouettes running furiously for their lives.Seconds later, as the boys raced across the beach, watching reporters were stunned when the gunboat lurking off the coast of the besieged territory fired again, this time scoring a direct hit.Even as the violence has calmed in Gaza and negotiations between Hamas and Israel continued today, the names of Mohammed Bakr, 11, Zakaria Bakr, 10, Ahed Bakr, 10, and Mohammed Bakr, nine, have not been forgotten.But today the Sun brought solace to Gaza's people, even as the homes of an estimated 100,000 of them lie in ruins from the relentless bombardment that lasted more than a month.Nearly 2,000 Palestinians have been killed and hundreds of thousands more forced from their homes. Water, electricity and sanitation systems have been devastated and, with the security situation still unclear, aid agencies have been unable to even begin counting the cost. With the Palestinian territory's binmen unable to work since the beginning of the offensive on July 8, rubbish is out of control. Farm animals hunting for morsels of food picked through the refuse in one area where it lay piled in heaps.Across the Gaza Strip the scene was almost post-apocalyptic, with whole neighbourhoods shattered and once-bustling streets abandoned by the hundreds of thousands of civilians still cowering in UN shelters.(dailymail.co.uk)Bakudaily.Az