Array
When Najah Nabhan learned that her home was about to be bombed by Israel, she knew she had to get out quickly. What she didn’t know was how she would get her four children with special needs out of the building in time.
With the help of neighbors, her children, who are unable to walk on their own, were carried to safety. But the airstrike flattened the three-story building, leaving 42 members of Nabhan’s extended family homeless and leaving her children without the wheelchairs, crutches and medical equipment they need to move about.
“I needed time to think what to take and what to leave. We have important documents and reports of the children’s conditions and history, medications and tools. All of them are gone,” said Najah, sitting on a mat in the debris-strewn front yard of what used to be her home in northern Gaza.
On Sunday morning, the entire family gathered in the yard, sitting under the shadow of a tree and receiving visitors who came to show solidarity.
Nabhan’s home was destroyed by the Israeli strike only hours before a cease-fire took effect late Saturday. At least 11 other residential buildings were destroyed by Israeli aircraft in the five days of fighting. It was the latest in a long line of armed battles between the military and rocket-firing Palestinian militant groups over the past 15 years.
At the start of the offensive, aircraft targeted apartments and homes of three Islamic Jihad commanders without warning, killing them. But some members of their families, including women and children, as well as neighbors were also killed. Human rights groups say a total of 60 housing units were destroyed, displacing about 400 people during the campaign.
Israel says all of the buildings it targeted were used as command centers by Islamic Jihad.
An Israeli military official, speaking to reporters on condition of anonymity under briefing guidelines, said these command centers were usually hidden in residential buildings of one to three stories. He said Israel called the inhabitants and ordered them to evacuate ahead of time.
