With empty streets and drawn curtains, Gaza feels like a ghost town. Its residents – tested by repeated wars – feel like they are living the same scenes again and again. Before Israel launched its “pre-emptive” strikes on militants in the already-besieged Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory was enjoying a summer unlike any other in recent years. Gaza’s beaches, long deemed too polluted with waste water for swimmers, had been declared mostly usable again, allowing Palestinians swimmers and surfers to rediscover the joys of the sea. All that came to an abrupt halt on Friday when Israel again b…