RAFAH, May 24: "Water" was on the lips of Palestinians thirsting for a return to normality after Israeli forces ended a siege of a battered Gaza refugee camp neighbourhood on Monday.

Emerging from their homes as Israeli armour left in a cloud of dust, men, women and children in the Tel Sultan area of Rafah approached journalists in the street to voice one message: "We want water."

The only thing running in the neighbourhood in the immediate aftermath of the pullout was sewage in streets torn up by tank tracks. Ahmed Toubas said water supplies had been cut for the past six days, since Israeli troops pushed into Rafah camp to search for weapons smuggling tunnels from nearby Egypt and militants.

"I had a container on the roof and we used the water twice, recycling it," said the father of nine. "I watched every child who sipped water. I had to tell my children to stop drinking water." Municipal workers moved into Tel Sultan to repair the water pipes, restore power and pile sand on pools of sewage once the Israeli forces withdrew.

For beekeeper Naeem Hejazi, the damage could not be undone. He said Israeli army bulldozers that levelled a citrus grove about one kilometre from the Jewish settlement of Rafiah Yam crushed his cash crop - 350 boxes of bees that produced about two tons of honey a year.

"I was watching from my house as the bulldozers approached my bees. Once the bulldozers started knocking them down and burying them, I forgot about the risk and ran from my house holding a white flag," Naeem Hejazi said.

"I begged them for my bees. They did not listen to me and told me to get away or they would shoot," he said, weeping.

HOMES DEMOLISHED: At least five houses were completely demolished in Tel Sultan and dozens of others damaged. "The Israelis started demolishing the house while we were inside. We squeezed into one room," recalled Zainab Breika, 40.