Access to Hamas's military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, is incredibly rare. Tonight I'm being taken to one of its front-line positions. To make sure no-one is following us, we change car several times. I arrive as fighters are preparing to ambush an Israeli tank with a home-made rocket.
REPORTER, (Translation): Will the Israelis come here?
SOLDIER, (Translation): They approached this street and might enter it because it's a border area.
America, Britain and Australia classify the Qassam Brigades as terrorists. They've sent 50 suicide bombers into Israel and killed countless civilians. Right now, the Israeli army is only about a kilometre away, conducting a search-and-destroy mission for Islamic militants and their bombs.
REPORTER, (Translation): Why do you take up position here?
SOLDIER, (Translation): We deploy here, because this is an engagement point for repelling any attack by the enemy.
A vehicle approaches and the fighters get into position. It's just a car, but they're careful, because Israel has a network of Palestinian collaborators ready to tell the Israelis where and when to strike. They say their religion gives them the strength to confront the might of the Israeli army.
SOLDIER, (Translation): What distinguishes us is our faith in God and in victory, God willing. Despite our meagre or limited means and equipment, compared to the Israeli technological capabilities, our strong faith in God is what enables us to remain steadfast.
The following night an Israeli force entered this street. Hamas militants were lying in ambush and they hit an armoured troop carrier, killing six soldiers. It was the highest Israeli death toll in a single operation in 18 months. Every child in Gaza knows the rules of the conflict.
REPORTER, (Translation): Tell me who plays Hamas and who's Jewish. How do you play this game?
CHILD 1, (Translation): I play Hamas.
CHILD 2, (Translation): And I also play Hamas. I hold the Kalashnikov and shoot.
REPORTER, (Translation): Who do you shoot at?
CHILD 1, (Translation): This one. Why?
REPORTER, (Translation): Who is he?
CHILD 1, (Translation): He's a Jew, the enemy.
This is Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, easily the most violent corner of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to the UN, a fifth of the 330 Palestinians the Israelis have killed here are children.
REPORTER, (Translation): Do the Jews shoot at you?
CHILD 1, (Translation): Sometimes. Every week. What do you mean, every week? Always.
REPORTER, (Translation): Do you get scared when they shoot?
CHILD 1, (Translation): No. We hide. We hide at home.
The week after I filmed here, reporters and doctors say, seven children were killed in this area of Tel Sultan. The Israelis deny the claims. At first Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza brought a glimmer of hope to the Palestinians here. But the reality is that Rafah has just seen its most destructive and bloody period ever.
These children are playing on what's left of their homes. The night before, Israeli bulldozers finished pulverising this street. The community says it lost 10 houses. This is all that remains of 12-year-old Wallah's house.
WALLAH, (Translation): We're sad for the houses we built by hand, stone by stone. We're sad for the land we built on. We'll keep defending our country, whatever the price.
Wallah's mother, Hannan Qistha, has come back to see what remains. She's lost everything.
HANNAN QISTHA, (Translation): This patch here. This is my house. They didn't leave a trace. They bulldozed it and put the rubble into that house. There is no trace at all. God is my only refuge. My house is gone. My seven children and I fled in the middle of the night and went to our neighbours.
The UN says that since October last year, Israel has demolished at least 600 homes in Rafah, leaving 6,000 homeless. Amnesty International says Israel is guilty of war crimes.
Israel justifies these actions as part of its war on terror. It says Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants attack from these houses and smuggle arms and explosives through tunnels from nearby Egypt.
HANNAN QISTHA, (Translation): Their excuse is that we have tunnels. We don't. If we had tunnels, we'd have been something else. It's not about tunnels. Where are these tunnels? They are the terrorists, not us. When they come and destroy a home housing nine people they're the terrorists, not those sitting in their house.
Hannan and her children have taken refuge in the nearby house of their cousin, Mahmoud Qishta, but Mahmoud fears his home is next to go. Israel has said it will demolish hundreds more houses to clear a corridor between the camp and the Egyptian border. At the end of its current operation in Rafah, Israel says it found three tunnels.
MAHMOUD, (Translation): Half the people you see are homeless. The children have nightmares at night. They have nightmares. They wet their beds. They have mental problems. We don't know how to deal with the events. It's very hard for us. A solution must be found for us in an Arab or foreign country. This is not a life. They're demolishing our houses on top of us. Where can I go if they demolish my house? I'd rather die than abandon it and become homeless.
RADIO ANNOUNCER: This is radio station 104.5 FM from Gaza, Palestine. The sound of the truth heard at this radio station with you until the freedom, inshallah, hand in hand to build our homeland.
In Gaza, it's not the traffic or weather reports on the radio that are most important. The hourly updates on Israeli army movements are vital.
ANNOUNCER, (Translation): Welcome again, dear listeners. At this moment, Israeli Apache helicopters are flying over the northern parts of Gaza and specifically over the town of Beit Hanoun. We wish for the safety of our fellow citizens.
It can be life or death information, especially since Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas from the lowest member to the highest leader. During the intifada or Palestinian uprising, Hamas has flourished and taken de facto control over much of Gaza. It's an area of immense poverty and misery. It's only 360 square kilometres, but it's crammed with about 1.5 million Palestinians.
This is a memorial for the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Yassin, who was assassinated by an Israeli rocket in March. Abdel Aziz Rantissi is also being remembered. He took over the leadership from Yassin, but was assassinated a month later.
The killings, say Gazans, have just created more anger and resistance. Palestinians have rallied to Hamas's war cry. The surviving Hamas leadership has gone deep underground. They have left their homes and offices and hide out in safe houses in the back streets of Gaza. They don't use phones or cars anymore, for fear of being tracked and assassinated by the Israelis.
By taking out the older generation, Sharon has given an opportunity for younger and even more radical leaders to emerge. Through a series of intermediaries we managed to track down 39-year-old Sami Abu Zuhri.
SAMI ABU ZUHRI, (Translation): The Hamas movement lost historical and symbolic leaders, who had great respect among Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. At the same time, Hamas has many young leaders who we expect will bring about a great impetus and a state of advancement and a utilisation of the broad education and the progressive spirit of these young leaders. This will contribute to broadening Hamas's activities and to its progress and spread among Palestinians as well as others.
Zuhri says Israel cannot wipe out Hamas, as it's a set of institutions and a way of life.
SAMI ABU ZUHRI, (Translation): The Israeli Government planned to assassinate this movement by assassinating its political leaders. But anybody who thinks they can liquidate this movement by assassinating its leaders is deluded. Hamas is strong and deeply rooted in the community and can never be liquidated.
Hamas has won that support because it has spent the last 15 years building an extensive social and welfare network in Gaza. At this Hamas school of Dar el Arqam, students pay a small fee. The emphasis here is on strong moral and Islamic teachings, laid on top of normal academic studies. Hamas has constructed a cradle-to-grave system that draws support and ensures its future growth. Hamas charities like Mujamma Islami provide social security for thousands. Manal Abu Shanab's husband is in jail in Israel. Without the help she receives here, her six children would be on the streets.
MANAL ABU SHANAB, (Translation): The situation is very hard. Unemployment is high in Gaza. Most of my brothers-in-law and brothers are unemployed. Our only helpers are God and the Islamic Mujamma, which supports us with sponsorships. Living costs are very high. They have a lot of school expenses - their food, drink, clothing. Life is very difficult. Thank God we are able to manage in this life.
Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority has failed to provide the people with a state. Hamas is now doing the job. And it's seen by Palestinians as efficient and honest. The director of Mujamma Islami, Sukkar Abu Hein, dismisses the Palestinian Authority, or PA, as irrelevant and corrupt.
SUKKAR ABU HEIN, (Translation): The stench of corruption in all the PA's branches had blocked their noses. The PA had failed, in the eyes of Palestinians, a thousand times over. We expected that they would come up with something new to fix what was ruined by time, by the long years of occupation, injustice and tyranny. "Injustice by those close to you harms more." Corruption has become widespread. It's a huge problem that is difficult to solve. You can see with your own eyes the state that Palestinian society has reached.
On the streets, the tension between Hamas and the PA is obvious. Here Israel has just hit Hamas's radio station with two rockets. Hamas supporters have gathered and demand to be let into the building. But PA security officials won't let them in.
The Hamas supporters won't take no for an answer and PA men open fire above their heads. No-one was killed here, but PA security men arrest some of the supporters, only to release them later. Hamas has always opposed the PA and the Oslo peace process of the 1990s. Unlike the PA, Hamas does not recognise the state of Israel.
In an effort to stop what it regards as a terrorist organisation, America has frozen Hamas's international funding and assets. This has crippled the work of Hamas charities, which rely heavily on donations from sympathisers abroad. The director of Mujamma Islami says he only has enough money to operate for another month, then the charity will have to close.
SUKKAR ABU HEIN, (Translation):If these associations support terrorism, then all the Palestinians are terrorists. They are Palestinian community associations with no link to any terrorist act whatsoever but America wants the Palestinians to starve to death. Why are they branded terrorists? For whose sake? Why is the orphan deprived, the university student, the son of the prisoner? Israel today imprisons more than 7,000 Palestinians and providers. Who is going to feed them, to provide for them? Is this what America brands as terrorism? If that is terrorism, then I'm the first terrorist.
VOICE-OVER: The President of the US and the Prime Minister of Israel.
What has deepened Palestinian anger towards America is President Bush's backing for Sharon's disengagement plan for Gaza. By trading Gaza, something Israelis overwhelmingly don't want, Sharon got a lot more in return.
President Bush endorsed Israel's territorial demands in the West Bank by recognising Jewish settlements there. Bush also agreed to forget about the right of return for over 4 million Palestinians and in the process overturned three decades of US diplomacy. But with Sharon's plan stalling, the American Administration has said it will reconsider these concessions.
Palestinian Eyad Sarraj is a long-time observer of Hamas and a human rights advocate. He says Bush and Sharon are deciding what the Palestinian state will be without consulting the Palestinians.
EYAD SARRAJ: This is unbelievable. Could he give the Israelis a place in California to live instead of giving them our land? He couldn't, because in California there are people who would be protesting. How would you give part of America, which is so vast? The whole of Palestine is minute on the map. But Bush is allowing himself to give that part of this Palestine to the Israeli settlers and not allowing the Palestinians to go back home in a capacity that is incomprehensible, to me. It is flagrant violation of any basic human rights. I can really tell him if you are so nice to the Israelis and you want to help them, well, then, give them California.
With most of its senior political leadership dead, Hamas no longer sees any reason to negotiate. Before Sheik Yassin was assassinated, he raised the idea of a truce if Israel withdrew from the West Bank and Gaza. But that chance died with him. Now Hamas wants revenge.
The new generation of Hamas leaders only has a military option.
EYAD SARRAJ: The danger is, in my view, that Hamas will be splintering into smaller groups and they will go underground. A headless Hamas is more potent and dangerous than a Hamas with one leader you can deal with. Now, if you want to negotiate with Hamas, who are you going to talk to? Nobody knows. Right? And if you think that you know the leader and you go to talk to him, maybe he is not, because nobody is now declared a leader of Hamas and now more and more of them are digging underground.
While a fractured Hamas might be a danger for Israel, on the ground all the militant Palestinian factions have dropped their differences and are fighting as one. This is an Islamic Jihad cell, but they work closely with Hamas. With funding from Iran, they are the most radical Islamist group in Gaza. They're an elite unit and the best will be picked to undertake suicide missions into Israel.
SOLDIER, (Translation): Whoever says we don't love life is being unjust. They came and occupied our land and took by force all we had, so what do you expect us to do? Give them a standing ovation and tell them to pillage as they please? No, they'll never have peace on our land. We will kill them, slaughter them, destroy their houses and drive them off our land. For this reason, we love martyrdom and love killing for the cause of God.
Islamic Jihad says the level of cooperation between different factions increased after Israel assassinated Sheik Yassin and Rantissi. In retaliation, these militants say they're planning with Hamas to send dozens of suicide bombers into Israel.
SOLDIER, (Translation): Sons of Zion, do not rejoice yet. Our response is coming. Prepare your black body bags. We tell you, scum, that right is on our side and we will come, when God wills, and blow up our pure bodies in your wretched buses.
REPORTER, (Translation): Will the Israelis come here?
SOLDIER, (Translation): They approached this street and might enter it because it's a border area.
America, Britain and Australia classify the Qassam Brigades as terrorists. They've sent 50 suicide bombers into Israel and killed countless civilians. Right now, the Israeli army is only about a kilometre away, conducting a search-and-destroy mission for Islamic militants and their bombs.
REPORTER, (Translation): Why do you take up position here?
SOLDIER, (Translation): We deploy here, because this is an engagement point for repelling any attack by the enemy.
A vehicle approaches and the fighters get into position. It's just a car, but they're careful, because Israel has a network of Palestinian collaborators ready to tell the Israelis where and when to strike. They say their religion gives them the strength to confront the might of the Israeli army.
SOLDIER, (Translation): What distinguishes us is our faith in God and in victory, God willing. Despite our meagre or limited means and equipment, compared to the Israeli technological capabilities, our strong faith in God is what enables us to remain steadfast.
The following night an Israeli force entered this street. Hamas militants were lying in ambush and they hit an armoured troop carrier, killing six soldiers. It was the highest Israeli death toll in a single operation in 18 months. Every child in Gaza knows the rules of the conflict.
REPORTER, (Translation): Tell me who plays Hamas and who's Jewish. How do you play this game?
CHILD 1, (Translation): I play Hamas.
CHILD 2, (Translation): And I also play Hamas. I hold the Kalashnikov and shoot.
REPORTER, (Translation): Who do you shoot at?
CHILD 1, (Translation): This one. Why?
REPORTER, (Translation): Who is he?
CHILD 1, (Translation): He's a Jew, the enemy.
This is Rafah refugee camp in southern Gaza, easily the most violent corner of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. According to the UN, a fifth of the 330 Palestinians the Israelis have killed here are children.
REPORTER, (Translation): Do the Jews shoot at you?
CHILD 1, (Translation): Sometimes. Every week. What do you mean, every week? Always.
REPORTER, (Translation): Do you get scared when they shoot?
CHILD 1, (Translation): No. We hide. We hide at home.
The week after I filmed here, reporters and doctors say, seven children were killed in this area of Tel Sultan. The Israelis deny the claims. At first Israeli PM Ariel Sharon's plan to withdraw from Gaza brought a glimmer of hope to the Palestinians here. But the reality is that Rafah has just seen its most destructive and bloody period ever.
These children are playing on what's left of their homes. The night before, Israeli bulldozers finished pulverising this street. The community says it lost 10 houses. This is all that remains of 12-year-old Wallah's house.
WALLAH, (Translation): We're sad for the houses we built by hand, stone by stone. We're sad for the land we built on. We'll keep defending our country, whatever the price.
Wallah's mother, Hannan Qistha, has come back to see what remains. She's lost everything.
HANNAN QISTHA, (Translation): This patch here. This is my house. They didn't leave a trace. They bulldozed it and put the rubble into that house. There is no trace at all. God is my only refuge. My house is gone. My seven children and I fled in the middle of the night and went to our neighbours.
The UN says that since October last year, Israel has demolished at least 600 homes in Rafah, leaving 6,000 homeless. Amnesty International says Israel is guilty of war crimes.
Israel justifies these actions as part of its war on terror. It says Hamas and Islamic Jihad militants attack from these houses and smuggle arms and explosives through tunnels from nearby Egypt.
HANNAN QISTHA, (Translation): Their excuse is that we have tunnels. We don't. If we had tunnels, we'd have been something else. It's not about tunnels. Where are these tunnels? They are the terrorists, not us. When they come and destroy a home housing nine people they're the terrorists, not those sitting in their house.
Hannan and her children have taken refuge in the nearby house of their cousin, Mahmoud Qishta, but Mahmoud fears his home is next to go. Israel has said it will demolish hundreds more houses to clear a corridor between the camp and the Egyptian border. At the end of its current operation in Rafah, Israel says it found three tunnels.
MAHMOUD, (Translation): Half the people you see are homeless. The children have nightmares at night. They have nightmares. They wet their beds. They have mental problems. We don't know how to deal with the events. It's very hard for us. A solution must be found for us in an Arab or foreign country. This is not a life. They're demolishing our houses on top of us. Where can I go if they demolish my house? I'd rather die than abandon it and become homeless.
RADIO ANNOUNCER: This is radio station 104.5 FM from Gaza, Palestine. The sound of the truth heard at this radio station with you until the freedom, inshallah, hand in hand to build our homeland.
In Gaza, it's not the traffic or weather reports on the radio that are most important. The hourly updates on Israeli army movements are vital.
ANNOUNCER, (Translation): Welcome again, dear listeners. At this moment, Israeli Apache helicopters are flying over the northern parts of Gaza and specifically over the town of Beit Hanoun. We wish for the safety of our fellow citizens.
It can be life or death information, especially since Israel has vowed to wipe out Hamas from the lowest member to the highest leader. During the intifada or Palestinian uprising, Hamas has flourished and taken de facto control over much of Gaza. It's an area of immense poverty and misery. It's only 360 square kilometres, but it's crammed with about 1.5 million Palestinians.
This is a memorial for the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas, Sheik Yassin, who was assassinated by an Israeli rocket in March. Abdel Aziz Rantissi is also being remembered. He took over the leadership from Yassin, but was assassinated a month later.
The killings, say Gazans, have just created more anger and resistance. Palestinians have rallied to Hamas's war cry. The surviving Hamas leadership has gone deep underground. They have left their homes and offices and hide out in safe houses in the back streets of Gaza. They don't use phones or cars anymore, for fear of being tracked and assassinated by the Israelis.
By taking out the older generation, Sharon has given an opportunity for younger and even more radical leaders to emerge. Through a series of intermediaries we managed to track down 39-year-old Sami Abu Zuhri.
SAMI ABU ZUHRI, (Translation): The Hamas movement lost historical and symbolic leaders, who had great respect among Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims. At the same time, Hamas has many young leaders who we expect will bring about a great impetus and a state of advancement and a utilisation of the broad education and the progressive spirit of these young leaders. This will contribute to broadening Hamas's activities and to its progress and spread among Palestinians as well as others.
Zuhri says Israel cannot wipe out Hamas, as it's a set of institutions and a way of life.
SAMI ABU ZUHRI, (Translation): The Israeli Government planned to assassinate this movement by assassinating its political leaders. But anybody who thinks they can liquidate this movement by assassinating its leaders is deluded. Hamas is strong and deeply rooted in the community and can never be liquidated.
Hamas has won that support because it has spent the last 15 years building an extensive social and welfare network in Gaza. At this Hamas school of Dar el Arqam, students pay a small fee. The emphasis here is on strong moral and Islamic teachings, laid on top of normal academic studies. Hamas has constructed a cradle-to-grave system that draws support and ensures its future growth. Hamas charities like Mujamma Islami provide social security for thousands. Manal Abu Shanab's husband is in jail in Israel. Without the help she receives here, her six children would be on the streets.
MANAL ABU SHANAB, (Translation): The situation is very hard. Unemployment is high in Gaza. Most of my brothers-in-law and brothers are unemployed. Our only helpers are God and the Islamic Mujamma, which supports us with sponsorships. Living costs are very high. They have a lot of school expenses - their food, drink, clothing. Life is very difficult. Thank God we are able to manage in this life.
Yasser Arafat's Palestinian Authority has failed to provide the people with a state. Hamas is now doing the job. And it's seen by Palestinians as efficient and honest. The director of Mujamma Islami, Sukkar Abu Hein, dismisses the Palestinian Authority, or PA, as irrelevant and corrupt.
SUKKAR ABU HEIN, (Translation): The stench of corruption in all the PA's branches had blocked their noses. The PA had failed, in the eyes of Palestinians, a thousand times over. We expected that they would come up with something new to fix what was ruined by time, by the long years of occupation, injustice and tyranny. "Injustice by those close to you harms more." Corruption has become widespread. It's a huge problem that is difficult to solve. You can see with your own eyes the state that Palestinian society has reached.
On the streets, the tension between Hamas and the PA is obvious. Here Israel has just hit Hamas's radio station with two rockets. Hamas supporters have gathered and demand to be let into the building. But PA security officials won't let them in.
The Hamas supporters won't take no for an answer and PA men open fire above their heads. No-one was killed here, but PA security men arrest some of the supporters, only to release them later. Hamas has always opposed the PA and the Oslo peace process of the 1990s. Unlike the PA, Hamas does not recognise the state of Israel.
In an effort to stop what it regards as a terrorist organisation, America has frozen Hamas's international funding and assets. This has crippled the work of Hamas charities, which rely heavily on donations from sympathisers abroad. The director of Mujamma Islami says he only has enough money to operate for another month, then the charity will have to close.
SUKKAR ABU HEIN, (Translation):If these associations support terrorism, then all the Palestinians are terrorists. They are Palestinian community associations with no link to any terrorist act whatsoever but America wants the Palestinians to starve to death. Why are they branded terrorists? For whose sake? Why is the orphan deprived, the university student, the son of the prisoner? Israel today imprisons more than 7,000 Palestinians and providers. Who is going to feed them, to provide for them? Is this what America brands as terrorism? If that is terrorism, then I'm the first terrorist.
VOICE-OVER: The President of the US and the Prime Minister of Israel.
What has deepened Palestinian anger towards America is President Bush's backing for Sharon's disengagement plan for Gaza. By trading Gaza, something Israelis overwhelmingly don't want, Sharon got a lot more in return.
President Bush endorsed Israel's territorial demands in the West Bank by recognising Jewish settlements there. Bush also agreed to forget about the right of return for over 4 million Palestinians and in the process overturned three decades of US diplomacy. But with Sharon's plan stalling, the American Administration has said it will reconsider these concessions.
Palestinian Eyad Sarraj is a long-time observer of Hamas and a human rights advocate. He says Bush and Sharon are deciding what the Palestinian state will be without consulting the Palestinians.
EYAD SARRAJ: This is unbelievable. Could he give the Israelis a place in California to live instead of giving them our land? He couldn't, because in California there are people who would be protesting. How would you give part of America, which is so vast? The whole of Palestine is minute on the map. But Bush is allowing himself to give that part of this Palestine to the Israeli settlers and not allowing the Palestinians to go back home in a capacity that is incomprehensible, to me. It is flagrant violation of any basic human rights. I can really tell him if you are so nice to the Israelis and you want to help them, well, then, give them California.
With most of its senior political leadership dead, Hamas no longer sees any reason to negotiate. Before Sheik Yassin was assassinated, he raised the idea of a truce if Israel withdrew from the West Bank and Gaza. But that chance died with him. Now Hamas wants revenge.
The new generation of Hamas leaders only has a military option.
EYAD SARRAJ: The danger is, in my view, that Hamas will be splintering into smaller groups and they will go underground. A headless Hamas is more potent and dangerous than a Hamas with one leader you can deal with. Now, if you want to negotiate with Hamas, who are you going to talk to? Nobody knows. Right? And if you think that you know the leader and you go to talk to him, maybe he is not, because nobody is now declared a leader of Hamas and now more and more of them are digging underground.
While a fractured Hamas might be a danger for Israel, on the ground all the militant Palestinian factions have dropped their differences and are fighting as one. This is an Islamic Jihad cell, but they work closely with Hamas. With funding from Iran, they are the most radical Islamist group in Gaza. They're an elite unit and the best will be picked to undertake suicide missions into Israel.
SOLDIER, (Translation): Whoever says we don't love life is being unjust. They came and occupied our land and took by force all we had, so what do you expect us to do? Give them a standing ovation and tell them to pillage as they please? No, they'll never have peace on our land. We will kill them, slaughter them, destroy their houses and drive them off our land. For this reason, we love martyrdom and love killing for the cause of God.
Islamic Jihad says the level of cooperation between different factions increased after Israel assassinated Sheik Yassin and Rantissi. In retaliation, these militants say they're planning with Hamas to send dozens of suicide bombers into Israel.
SOLDIER, (Translation): Sons of Zion, do not rejoice yet. Our response is coming. Prepare your black body bags. We tell you, scum, that right is on our side and we will come, when God wills, and blow up our pure bodies in your wretched buses.