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”.

    • jarfil@lemmy.world
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      1 year 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. 🤷

      • ???@lemmy.world
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        1 year 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.

        • jarfil@lemmy.world
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          1 year 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.