By Alice Cuddy BBC News, Jerusalem


The call to Mahmoud Shaheen came at dawn.

It was Thursday 19 October at about 06:30, and Israel had been bombing Gaza for 12 days straight.

He’d been in his third-floor, three-bedroom flat in al-Zahra, a middle-class area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Until now, it had been largely untouched by air strikes.

He’d heard a rising clamour outside. People were screaming. “You need to escape,” somebody in the street shouted, “because they will bomb the towers”.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        118 months ago

        Well… yes.

        North = you’ll get bombed.
        South = you’ll get bombed maybe.
        East = you’ll get shot.
        West = you’ll get shot and drown.

        It’s a shitty situation, but I’d pick South. 🤷

        • المنطقة عكف عفريت
          link
          fedilink
          English
          48 months ago

          I’m not sure your argument is fair. “Maybe” is anywhere. Two nights ago half the casualties came from the South.

          I understand why many people chose to stay home and die together with their families rather than be dragged around forever and then die anyway.

          • @[email protected]
            link
            fedilink
            English
            -18 months ago

            From what it looks like, North, East and West, are more of a “for sure” than a “maybe”.

            I also understand why people choose to die at home, it’s somewhat harder to understand why anyone with a chance to live would willingly stay in the area, since all of Gaza has been reeking of “death camp” for well over a decade.

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      English
      168 months ago

      Ah yes, please leave your home, with everything in it included, all your memories, possessions, everything and leave within 2 hours “south”. Just generally “south”. Oh and you can’t come back btw, your house wont exist.