Paul Calvert reports on his trip to the most densely populated place on earth

I was recently invited by the Palestinian Bible Society to go into Gaza. Gaza is a strip of land that is only 141 square miles (30 miles long and 7 miles wide) and is the most densely populated place on the face of the earth.

As I have a Press Pass it was easy for me to go into Gaza; I only needed a visa from Hamas, the ruling party of the Gaza Strip. Nashat, who is an Israeli Arab, who was travelling with me, had to get permission from the Israeli Government to go in. On this trip he was given six hours permission to travel into Gaza.

I wanted to get some radio interviews about life in Gaza, as it is always in the news. Just recently there have been reports that fundamental Islamists are kidnapping Christians and forcing them to convert to Islam.

I had my computer and mixer desk ready for my task ahead, but this left me with an unexpected problem. Nashat said, "I hope you have your computer battery charged, because they have power cuts in Gaza; they get electricity for two hours a day".

This left me with a big problem, because my computer and my mixer desk took electricity to get the interviews I wanted. I just hadn't realised that there could be power cuts.

We decided to download an app on the way for my mobile phone, which allowed us to record an interview if there was no electricity.

It takes about one and a half hours on a good journey to get from Jerusalem to Gaza. On the way there and near the Gaza border, we passed the Jewish town of Sderot. Sderot has become famous because it is constantly bombarded by rockets that are fired from the Gaza strip. People have about 15 seconds to get into a bunker for safety.

Next to the Gaza Strip Israel has the Iron Dome, which is a missile defence system. It shoots down rockets that are fired from the Gaza Strip.

As we got close to the border I could see something that looked like a hot air balloon. This was a security measure. There would be cameras up there monitoring the situation.

We came to the Erez crossing from the Israel side. We left the car there because we weren't allowed to take it into Gaza and we went to the booth where they checked our passports and ID. We were allowed to go into the building where I got my passport stamped. I was technically leaving Israel now as I entered into Gaza.

We crossed over, going through many turnstiles and waited to be released through a big metal door in the wall, before we then made it onto the other side. There was a long corridor we had to walk through, which led to where we got a taxi. The taxi took us to the Palestinian checkpoint where our passport and ID were checked again.

After our check we waited for friends to come and pick us up. As we waited, donkeys were passing on the road. These weren't wild donkeys eating grass, they were working donkeys pulling carts; a sort of trailer on wheels. These trailers were loaded up with goods and the donkey's job was to move them from A to B.

I saw many working donkeys on the trip. They seem to be popular in the Gaza Strip and a vital part of the community.

Our friends arrived and took us into Gaza city. As we travelled I looked at the buildings; I could see the wounds of bullets in many buildings that had hit the brick work. It was obvious to anyone that this was an area at war.