Gaza City

In Gaza City, 28 year old Jamalat Wadi has eight children and an unemployed husband who gets through the days on sedatives. She has no water or electricity and she's worn out trying to cope. Her husband hasn't worked for years and he's frustrated and angry. The house is hot and dark.

Jamalt and eight other women are at a stress clinic listening to the mental health worker. "Our husbands don't work, my kids are not in school, I get nervous, I yell at them, I cry, I fight with my husband" she says. "My husband starts fighting with us and then he cries "What am I going to do" What can I do?"

There's enough to eat in Gaza, goods are brought over the border or smuggled in through the tunnels. That's not the problem - Jamalt's husband and her family are despondent and depressed because they can't see any future for themselves or their family.

The Palestinian people have two governments, the Fatah-dominated one in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza. And they hate each other. Ms Wadi said that when she visited her mother, her two brothers fought bitterly because one backed Hamas and the other Fatah. Recently they threw bottles at each other and her mother had to tell them to leave the house.

The current problem is electricity - there isn't any. Part is supplied by Israel and paid for by the West Bank government which is partly reimbursed by Hamas. But the West Bank says that Hamas is not paying enough so Jamalt and her large family have to struggle on without it. A UN spokesman said the latest electricity problem "is a sad reflection of the divide on the Palestine side." He added "They have no credibility in demanding anything from anybody if they show such disregard for the plight of their own people."

Today Hamas has no rival in Gaza. It runs the schools, hospitals, courts, security services and - through the tunnels from Egypt - the economy. They took over full control by force three years ago, a year after it won an election. While Hamas has no competition for power, it has a surprisingly small following. Most of the people interviewed weren't prepared to praise either government. "They're both liars" Waleed Hassouna, a baker in Gaza City said. Ask Gazans how to solve the Palestinian-Israel conflict - two states? one state? - and the answer is mostly to drive Israel out. A public school teacher said "All the land is ours. We should turn the Jews into refugees and then let the international community take care of them."

Hamza and Muhammad Ju'bas are brothers, aged 13 and 11. They sell chocolates and gum on the streets after school to add to their family income. Once they make about $5, they go home and play. The boys were asked about their hopes. "My dream is to be a worker" Hamza said. He remembers stories about the good times in the 1990s when his father worked in Israel as a house painter making $85 a day. The family live in Shujaiya, a packed eastern neighbourhood of 70,000 made up of narrow, winding alleys and main roads lined with small shops. The shops have generators chained down outside.

The Palestinians have big families. From 1997 to 2007, the population increased by 40 percent to 15 million. Mr Ju'bas and his wife Hiyam have seven boys and three girls. Two of their children have disabilities. For six years Mr Ju'bas worked in Israel and with the money he bought a house with six rooms and two bathrooms. In 2000, when the uprising called the second intifada broke out, Israel closed the gates. After that he found small jobs round Gaza but with the blockade, they soon dried up. His only source of work is at the United Nations relief agency, where two months of the year he gets work as a security guard. He admits that at times he lashes out at his family. Domestic violence is on the rise. The strain is acute for women. Men can go out and sit in parks, in chairs right on the footpath or visit friends but the women are expected to stay off the streets. A child said that the previous night, his father had hit his mother. The washing machine had broken and he had no money to fix it. He told his wife to use the neighbours but she was embarrassed and stayed up all night crying.

The women at the stress clinic gathered about 10am. They speak of sending their children to work just to get them out of the house and of husbands who grow morose and violent with no work to go to. And they blame Hamas for their misery, for seizing the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit which led to the blockade. But they also blame Fatah for failing them.

Mr Wadi's house was next door to the stress clinic and she ran over to check on her family. She found her eight children wandering around unsupervised and her husband unconscious, his arm over his head and his mouth open. "He sleeps all the time" Ms Wadi said.

But what of the younger generation? Seventy five percent of the populaation of 410,000 are under the age of 25. Mahmod Mesalem 20 and a few of his friends are university graduates and they all despair about the future. "We're here, we're going to die here, we're going to be buried here" said 22 year old Waleed Matar. They have started a company to design advertisements and they write and produce small plays. Their first performance was in front of several hundred people and recounted the horrors of the last war with Israel. Their second play which they are rehearsing, is a black comedy about the Palestinian plight.

Israel holds the key to their fate and while most view them as the enemy, they need to work. Jamil Mahsan 62 is a dying breed, he worked for 35 years in Israel and believes in two states. "There are two peoples in Palestine, not just one and each deserves its rights" he said. He used to attend the weddings of his Israeli co-workers and had many friends there.

Abdel Qader Ismail 24, a former employee of the military intelligence service said "We believe in Israel's right to exist but not on the land of Palestine. Maybe in France or in Russia, but not Palestine. This is our home.