By Jeremy Bowen, BBC Middle East editor, 22 April 2008
A five-month-old baby lay on a blanket in the shade of a hut made of metal sheets.
Thin tree branches, with leaves and twigs intact, were laced around the ends of the hut to insulate it against the hot wind that blows into the sand dunes, rolling away to the border fence and on to Israel.
 Aziza lost one baby child when a wall of sewage hit her home |
The baby’s mother sat with her legs tucked under her, hiding most of her face behind her black head-scarf. It flapped slightly in the breeze, and she used it to wipe her tears and muffle her sobs.
The woman’s name is Aziza Abu Otayek. She wept because she was remembering the death of another baby son, one morning in March last year, just after the older children had gone to school.