Dan Cohen for Mondoweiss– Since the Netanyahu government’s decision to halt negotiations following last week’s ceasefires, Israel has resumed its campaign of F16 bombings and drone strikes. Apparently entering a new phase of attacks, the Israeli military targeted a 13 story-residential tower in west Gaza City, collapsing it with two airstrikes. Later, a building in the southern Gaza city of Rafah was similarly destroyed.
I met Assad Saftawi, 18, as he was sifting through rubble. “We’re trying to get the money and jewelry from the rubble but as you can see, you don’t know which items are yours,” he told me.
According to Saftawi, the Israeli military had called a resident family in Zafer Building 4 at 6:30 pm, warning them to evacuate. “They called our flat and told us that the residents in Zafer 4 and Zafer 1 towers need to evacuate immediately, but my family didn’t leave until we had seen our neighbors running in the streets,” Saftawi recounted. “We left the building without taking anything because we thought that we would return after 15 minutes. We didn’t imagine they would target the entire building. They called us again and said all residents of the tower need to evacuate. So we went back to help an old lady evacuating. After that, they called for the third time and we told them that the tower is empty. Five minutes later, they hit the roof with a drone missile. Fifteen minutes later they hit it with two F-16 bombs and the whole tower went to the ground. Our house in Deir al Balah was targeted early in this war and now we lost this apartment. Other people lost their houses as well and we are all homeless. We can stay with our relatives but some people have absolutely no place to go.”
I was in a media building — the top two floor of which are destroyed from a previous bombing — only 500 meters away from Zafer 4 when the airstrikes hit. Although having been in Gaza for over a week and having adjusted to the regularity of missiles and drone strikes, the sound of the explosion and immediate collapse of the building was shocking. I peered out of the fourth story window, though there were no visible signs of the explosions. Seconds later, dozens of birds flew overhead, clearly spooked by the massive explosions.
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