Gaza: a catalogue of hell

When photographer Rene Rossignaud passed through the six-foot iron door to enter Gaza from Israel, he thought: "We're going into hell".

Having returned from the war-torn land earlier this month, with thousands of photographs cataloguing his week-long trip, Mr Rossignaud is unable to forget the destruction and the suffering of the people.

But despite barely having enough food for themselves, Palestinians still insist on inviting people inside their homes to offer peanuts, fruit and orange juice, Mr Rossignaud and fellow photographer Nick Critien discovered.

Some of them barely have a place to stay, their homes having been bombed. Children run about in the streets, looking for wood to light fires and warm what is left of their abodes. Others search for any belongings among the rubble.

"The minute you walk through that door, you get a reality check. There, in front of your eyes, is a two-kilometre stretch of what used to be an industrial zone and it is completely destroyed," the 28-year-old photographer said.

Orange trees, which used to fill hectares of land, have been uprooted by Israeli tanks.

Earlier in Tel Aviv, a mere hour-and-a-half away by train, people seemed oblivious to the destruction in Gaza. "We asked for directions to get to Ashqelon and Sderot, two villages close to Gaza, and nobody seemed to know how to get there."

Ashqelon was still getting heavily bombed by Hamas when the two photographers got there on January 31.

"When the missile alarm went off at 7 a.m. on our first day, we did not know what to do. We crouched under the hotel bed and a second later heard a deafening explosion. You only get 10 seconds notice, and we did not even know that the hotel had its own shelters," Mr Rossignaud said.

In Rafah, where there are tunnels connecting the Gaza Strip to Egypt, the two photographers had a close shave with Hamas militants.

"When they saw us with cameras in hand, we were thrown against the car, with guns pointed to our heads." Just minutes after they finally left, Israel bombed Rafah, with many people dying.

Even getting back into Israel was a feat for the two photographers, who spent hours being scanned.

"It was a big difference from Gaza when passport control agents offered us tea when we were leaving the territory," Mr Rossignaud said.