After the Israeli military announced that a multi-story residential tower in Gaza was about to be targeted in an airstrike, families in Gaza screamed as they hurled their belongings out of their windows on Sunday.
The Al-Mahna building in Tal Al-Hawa, a southern neighborhood in Gaza City, was sheltering dozens of Palestinian families who are remaining in the face of Israel’s scorched earth campaign to seize control of the city. The Israeli military, which began its ethnic cleansing of the one million estimate residents of Gaza City last month, has destroyed hundreds of towers and homes in Gaza City, reducing dozens of high rise buildings to rubble and re-displacing hundreds of families in nearby tent encampments.
Men, women, and children scrambled out of the Al-Mahna building in utter panic, carrying whatever belongings they could salvage—thin mattresses, suitcases, baskets, and plastic chairs. People began throwing mattresses and bags out of the windows of the 12-story building, where clothes could be seen still hanging to dry in the balconies. The belongings crashed to the ground, putting people exiting the structure in danger. A woman screamed, “What is happening?” as she ran into the street. One man collapsed in despair, crying, “I can’t, I swear I can’t,” before his friends picked him up off the ground.