worse. martin savidge for us. thank you. live from jerusalem. for more on the story here s john. okay, natalie, thank you. and we have more now on that red cross two-hour-long cease-fire on sunday. it was intended to let palestinians bury their dead and tend to their wounded. but the fighting did not stop for long. here s ben wedeman reporting in from gaza. [ sirens ] reporter: for a brief moment, ever so brief, the guns went silent in shaja ia. just enough time to take away the dead and wounded and for everyone else to leave. people are coming out reporter: or beg for help. [ speaking foreign language ]. reporter: my son is in the house, amira heles tells me. he s wounded. i called for an ambulance. i called for help.
but not long after that cease-fire began it was broken by more fighting, with both sides blaming the other. in an interview with cnn s wolf blitzer israel s prime minister defended his country s military operation. i mean, we didn t seek this escalation. hamas forced it on us. they started rocketing our cities, steadily increasing the fire. i called for deescalation. they refused. reporter: later in the day israeli leaflets were reported falling on other gaza neighborhoods, farther to the north, warning residents to leave. a clear indication gaza may have more violent days to come. the israeli military is saying the shaja ia military continues to be a main point of friction, that was their words they used, and that there was very close combat overnight with hamas militants. they are also reporting that there was one attempt at which a suicide bomber apparently tried to attack israeli forces. so it is looking like it s going to be another grim day.
much. many of them carrying small children. some here and there, a plastic bag with their personal possessions. now apparently because of the level of injuries, the hospital, the main hospital here in gaza city, is crammed full of the wounded. the morgue is full of the dead. we re hearing continuous shelling in the direction of shaja ia. this is what we saw well into the night last night. we saw dark smoke coming from shaja ia, the neighborhood of gaza city. and we saw fairly heavy pounding. more than one incoming round every minute, it appeared. and it went on for hours and hours. this was an area that the israelis had warned residents to evacuate several days ago and go to gaza city. but many of them will tell you, they have nowhere to go.
and i can tell you that they re more than 60,000 people, according to the u.n., who sought refuge in schools. the closer you get to shaja ia, entire families here them don t know what to do. they don t know where to go. many of the children appear to be traumatized by their experience overnight. and ben, you had mentioned in fact that there had been some type of warning. did they have any explanation? did they understand that perhaps they would be in the line of fire on this particular evening? and that the bombardment would be so heavy? reporter: on this particular evening, i don t think they had a specific warning. i m keeping a very close eye on that sort of thing and there was nothing to warn them that last night would be a night of intense shelling and profound danger.