Every Wednesday morning for the past few weeks I have sat down at the keyboard and asked myself, "what are you going to write about today, Susan?" Gaza, I'd decide, and type "Gaza" on the blank screen.

That's as far as I'd get. What could I add to the discussion about Gaza? Today I figured it out. I can tell some of the stories I recorded on my trip to Gaza, in December, 2003.

Mohammed Al Naqa is the social worker at the Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City. His family of seven lived in one small room of his parent's house while they to build a modest home, he told me. When they finally moved into their own place they were thrilled to be able to spread out. A dream come true.

Then a small Israeli settlement was built nearby, very close. The settlers took potshots at his house. The children could no longer play outside. There was only one room that was safe from the bullets, so they all slept there, again huddled in one room. A nightmare.

His youngest, a daughter, cries all the time, he said. She cannot sleep and wets the bed. A study reported that almost all of Gaza's children had experienced at least one traumatic event: 70 percent had been tear gassed, 61 percent had their house searched and damaged by Israeli soldiers; 54 percent had witnessed shooting, fighting, or explosions. Most children - 91 percent of the boys, 84 percent of the girls - exhibit symptoms such as anxiety, depression, anti-social behavior or attention deficit disorder.

I smile when I think of the Al Naqa family being able to live in every single room of their house, the children able to play in the yard, no longer threatened by settlers with guns. I hope the children of Gaza can heal.

But Al Naqa told me that the children are also traumatized by poverty. The average Gaza family lives on two dollars a day, 80 percent of them below the poverty line. Unemployment has doubled since the beginning of the Intifada in 2000. More than 210,000 jobs have been lost and unemployment estimates range from 50 to 70 percent. Men sit at home, idle, angry, ashamed and depressed. Families argue, fall apart.

Malnutrition is increasing, Al Naqa said. Now, 18 percent of Gaza children are malnourished, and pre-natal care is rare. His hospital is seeing an increase in nutrition-related retardation.

The Israelis will still control the Gaza airspace, the seaports and the borders.

In January, 2003 the St. Paul's Chapel in the Ahli Arab hospital was bombed - an accident, the Israeli general claimed -- by a Tau guided missile launched from an Apache helicopter. The hospital staff passed around a bowl filled with shrapnel. We gaped at the five-foot-deep hole in the marble floor less than a yard from the altar. The bomb short-circuited the electrical system, took out the phones and fried the pediatric x-ray machine.

Will such bombing continue once the 10,000 or so Israeli soldiers leave? Will Israeli soldiers still enter Gaza to pursue suspected terrorists? If so, how much will really change?

Al Naqa leaves home at 4:30 every morning to start work by 7. Gaza is only 28 miles long by four miles wide, an easy commute, you would think, but he has to pass through two Israeli army checkpoints and sometimes doesn't get to the hospital until 9 or 10. I smile when I think of him sleeping in late, having breakfast with his family and waving the kids off to school once the internal checkpoints are disbanded.

But the Israelis will still control everything going in and coming out of Gaza. Dr. Maher Ayyad, the hospital's chief surgeon, told us that there are no medical labs in Gaza. It requires Israeli permission to send a blood test or biopsy to a lab in Jerusalem or Egypt. It can take months, so they don't perform tests that require lab work. Is that lump malignant? He guesses.

Suhaila Tarazi, the hospital director said a new ambulance was held up at the border for three months. Goods and people can't get in, can't get out. Will this change? I doubt it.

The disengagement is a hopeful sign but Gaza will still be poor, still be traumatized and still be the world's largest open air prison.

Susan Ives can be reached at suives@texas.net.