The violence has stopped for now and no shooting can be heard, well, almost no shooting. Various funeral stands with mourners are on the streets. There is a lot of pain left behind and confusion about the killings and about the future.

As Oxfam's programme officer in Gaza, I have been receiving many phone calls over the last few days. The phone calls give me an idea of how people around me are feeling; on the one hand there is relief that the violence has stopped and on the other hand anxiety about the reaction of Israel and the International Community to the events of the last few days. Why this worry? Because life in Gaza depends on the opening and closing of crossings between Gaza and Israel. To enter or exit Gaza you need permission, without it you cannot move. I see the crossings as "valves"; these "valves" control access of fuel, food and medical supplies as well as the trickle of people travelling in and out of the Gaza Strip.

Gaza is a strip of land of 365 km2 inhabited by more than a million people with no way out: air, sea and land - all parameters controlled by the State of Israel. It is hard to understand how so many people have managed to exist for so many years with no possibilities of working (you need a permit to work in Israel), living mainly on food aid - it's an intense and difficult environment to live in.

It is important to clarify that the situation did not start to go wrong a week ago, it has been "going wrong" since 2000 with the increasing Israeli closure of the Palestinian borders (both in Gaza and the West Bank). This situation has been worsened by the international boycott that closed off economic support to the Palestinian Authority.

Over the last few years workers permits into Israel have been revoked by the thousands. In addition to this, a hundred thousand Palestinian Authority employees have lost their regular income. With many development projects being closed down people are being pushed further into poverty.

Finally the European Community had found a way to provide, through the Temporary International Mechanism, fuel to institutions (power plants and hospitals among them) and allowances to Palestinian Authority employees to keep things going but they were not supporting the idea of a unity government that could provide an element of stability in a very stormy sea.

Now we hear of the new emergency government and the expected end of the boycott expressed by the United States of America. Salam Fayad the person who has been chosen by the President Abu Mazen to head it is widely respected in the West. Nevertheless I hear the people of Gaza questioning: how will that affect us here in Gaza, what will the repercussions of this will be for us?

I have now arrived at Al shifa Hospital, to meet its director Dr. Hasan Abu Tawela, a well known cardiologist, called from retirement 7 months ago to deal with the many problems the hospital has to face.

While entering into Dr Hasan Abu Tawela's office I see a man also in a white coat showing a slight injury on his neck: "A few millimetres saved me", he said, "the bullet just glided past my neck damaging only the surface of my skin!"

I hear that security for hospital staff has been among one of the many problems doctors have dealt with. How to get staff from home and back and how to protect the patients while in the hospital? At least that part is over now, at least for the moment.

"We are all anxious" Dr. Tawela, stated. "It is like we are holding our breath waiting for something to happen. Meanwhile we are running out of the most essential items like syringes, sutures, gloves, medicines... today, if we had to deal with a traffic accident that involved a few people, the supplies we have left would not even last an hour. We are doing first aid work, small sutures here and there, changes of bandages and things like that. We cannot do any more."

Dr Tawela continues, "I do not want to bore you with these stories, but one of the most tragic situations is the amount operations we have had to conduct with insufficient equipment available. There is a line of vascular patients waiting to be moved either to Egyptian or Israeli hospitals for treatment. We have 15 patients from Al Shifa alone and nothing has been done about them yet.

Because it is Sunday international organisations, except the United Nations in Gaza seem to be closed. The hospital received a visit from an international organisation yesterday to find out about the situation but Dr. Tawela in not very hopeful about the arrival of supplies.

"We hear" he tells me "that the United States will lift the boycott for the emergency government in Palestine, but how this will affect us here in Gaza is not clear. Are we not also Palestinian? Parts of our families are in Jerusalem or in the West Bank; both sides form a unit in relation to families and traditions. How can people ignore this?"

A visit to the bank (closed all week and thus interminable lines of people queuing) and a coffee at the Beach Camp (a refugee camp in the northern part of the city of Gaza) at the United Nations Women's Centre will end my outing.

After days of being in their houses, the women crowd the place and sit down speaking to one another. Hyat the social worker whom I know of long comments "even if food aid keeps coming and there is power and water, what do we do after with our lives? Is life only about sustenance? What about dreams, work, a future? How can we keep our dignity among the daily waiting for food parcels?"

The head of the centre, Sabah Taleb, a dynamic and hopeful woman, serves us bitter coffee saying: "We are all in mourning; nevertheless we have to try to be positive about the future."

I am working with my colleagues across Oxfam to identify the humanitarian needs of people living in Gaza.