DEIR EL BALAH, Gaza Strip — The Israeli bombs began falling earlier than daybreak, lighting the sky with orange flares and shattering the stillness.
The shock wave of airstrikes plunged Palestinians again right into a nightmare that they had hoped is perhaps behind them.
The bombs crashed throughout Gaza early Tuesday, setting hearth to a sprawling tent camp within the southern metropolis of Khan Younis and flattening a Hamas-run jail. They hit the Al-Tabaeen shelter in Gaza Metropolis, the place Majid Nasser was sleeping along with his household.
“I went out to see the place the bombing was. Abruptly the second strike occurred within the room subsequent to us,” he mentioned. “I heard screaming, my mom and sister screaming, calling for assist. I got here and entered the room and located the youngsters beneath the rubble.” Everybody was injured, however alive.
Palestinians tried to claw our bodies from the wreckage with their naked palms. Mother and father arrived at hospitals, barefoot, carrying kids who have been limp and coated in ash. Streets and hospitals crammed with our bodies.
By noon, over 400 folks had been killed. It was one of many deadliest days of the 17-month war, following two months of ceasefire.
Throughout the truce that started on Jan. 19, a whole bunch of hundreds of individuals in Gaza had returned to their properties, a lot of them destroyed. A surge of support introduced meals and medicines — till Israel cut off aid two weeks ago to stress the Hamas militant group into accepting a brand new proposal as a substitute of constant with the truce.
The Muslim holy month of Ramadan had even supplied moments of pleasure as households held communal sundown meals ending every day’s quick with out the worry of bombardment.
As a substitute, the conflict that has killed tens of hundreds of Palestinians and brought on widespread destruction was again with full pressure.
“What is going on to us is hell. Hell in each sense of the phrase,” mentioned Zeyad Abed, as he stood among the many blackened stays of tents in Khan Younis.
Fedaa Heriz, a displaced lady in Gaza Metropolis, mentioned victims have been killed of their sleep simply earlier than the predawn meal forward of the each day Ramadan quick.
“They set the alarm to get up for suhoor, they usually get up to loss of life? They don’t get up?” she screamed.
Fedaa Hamdan misplaced her husband and their two kids within the strikes in Khan Younis.
“My kids died whereas they have been hungry,” she mentioned, as funeral prayers have been held over their our bodies.
Scenes at hospitals recalled the early days of the conflict, when Israel launched a large bombardment of Gaza in response to the Hamas assault on Oct. 7, 2023.
Survivors on Tuesday held rushed funeral rites over dozens of physique baggage lining the yard of Shifa Hospital in Gaza Metropolis. Moms sobbed over the bloodied our bodies of kids, as warplanes hummed overhead. Medical doctors struggled to deal with the circulate of wounded.
“A degree of horror and evil that’s actually laborious to articulate. It felt like Armageddon,” mentioned Dr. Tanya-Haj Hassan, a volunteer with the Medical Help for Palestinians support group.
She described the Nasser Hospital emergency room in Khan Younis as chaos, with sufferers, together with kids, unfold throughout the ground. Some have been nonetheless wrapped within the blankets that they had slept in.
Dr. Ismail Awad with the Medical doctors With out Borders support group mentioned the clinic acquired about 26 wounded folks, together with a lady seven months pregnant with shrapnel in her neck. She later died.
“It was overwhelming, the variety of sufferers,” Awad mentioned.
On the Al-Attar clinic in Muwasi in southern Gaza, medical employees mentioned they have been compelled to function with out gentle bulbs and emergency air flow gadgets.
Israel not solely blocked all provides from coming into Gaza two weeks in the past but in addition cut off electricity to the territory’s primary desalination plant final week. That has once more created scarcities in medication, meals, gasoline and contemporary water for Gaza’s over 2 million folks.
New Israeli evacuation orders protecting Gaza’s jap flank subsequent to Israel and stretching right into a key hall dividing Gaza’s north and south despatched Palestinians fleeing once more.
Israel’s Arabic-language army spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, printed a map on X telling Palestinians in these areas, together with extremely populated neighborhoods, to depart instantly and head for shelters.
“Persevering with to stay within the designated areas places your life and the lives of your loved ones members in danger,” he mentioned.
The evacuation zone appeared to incorporate components of Gaza’s primary north-south street, elevating questions on how folks may journey. Palestinians nonetheless gathered their belongings and set out, hardly figuring out the place to go.
UNICEF spokesperson Rosalia Bollen recalled that the times earlier than the bombardment felt uneasy. She may sense worry. Kids would ask if she believed the conflict would begin once more.
“This nightmare state of affairs has been on everybody’s thoughts,” she mentioned. “It’s simply heartbreaking that it’s materializing proper now and that it’s shattering the final piece of hope that folks had.”
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Frankel reported from Jerusalem and Magdy from Cairo. and Related Press author Sam Mednick in Tel Aviv, Israel, contributed to this report.
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