Gaza Metropolis – On the primary day of Eid al-Adha, Widad Al-Husari, 31, sat along with her husband, kids, and prolonged household on a rooftop in Gaza City, making an attempt to create a way of vacation spirit amid an ongoing battle and displacement.
The household had dinner, then shared sweets, whereas the youngsters, wearing new garments, performed of their tent erected on the terrace till an explosion shattered the night silence.
Widad rushed to the tent and picked up her three-year-old son, Rafiq, however within the panic, they plummeted by way of a gap brought on by a missile that had penetrated the constructing.
The remainder of the household adopted her screams and located Widad clinging to her baby and hanging from steel rods protruding from masonry a number of flooring beneath. Beneath them, a fireplace raged, brought on by a warhead that had detonated simply seconds earlier.
“I didn’t discover the openings… It was darkish in every single place and smoke stuffed the place. I used to be solely holding my baby after I instantly fell with him into a gap,” Widad advised Al Jazeera.
Widad factors to 3 holes in the midst of the terrace, the place the missiles struck, certainly one of them the hole she had fallen by way of.
“I might really feel the warmth of the hearth beneath me… Everybody was screaming, smoke stuffed the place, and I used to be hanging [from the metal rods] till my husband and brothers managed to drag me out with my baby,” she stated.
“Once they [pulled] the iron rods lower my physique, my legs, and my again. I lived by way of moments of hell, like a horror film, and I nonetheless endure from extreme ache and concern to this second. We had been sitting consuming Eid sweets, then instantly every thing become screams.”
The strike killed seven folks, together with two kids and two ladies. Eighteen had been injured, together with her four-year-old niece, Sara al-Khalout, who was thrown by the blast onto the courtyard beneath. She was critically injured and continues to be being handled in an intensive care unit.
Sixty-year-old Zuhdia Azzam, who lived in one of many decrease flooring of the constructing, was along with her household receiving company for Eid when a missile struck.
In a single second, her 12-year-old granddaughter, Sidra, was killed, and one other granddaughter, Sham, 11, had her leg amputated.
“The scenario was utterly calm till we heard an enormous explosion… All of us rushed to the higher flooring the place each granddaughters had gone simply moments earlier,” Azzam advised Al Jazeera.
“We discovered certainly one of them killed and the opposite holding her leg that had been lower off. She was crawling. It doesn’t matter to Israel whether or not it’s Eid, an event, or a densely populated civilian space – instantly [a missile] is above your head.”
‘No secure place’
The household’s experiences are just like these of hundreds of others in Gaza, who escaped one war zone for another through the 31-month genocide, with drones and warplanes showing to stalk their each motion.
Widad and her household as soon as lived in a cushty dwelling within the Zeitoun neighbourhood of japanese Gaza Metropolis, till it was destroyed in November 2023, a month into Israel’s genocidal battle on Gaza.
With their kin’ houses already teeming with different displaced households, the one refuge Widad might discover was the rooftop of a constructing rented by her brother.
She and her husband had hoped their new rooftop dwelling would offer a haven for her kids. That was till the Israeli warplanes struck once more.
“I by no means imagined in my life that we might be bombed on this approach. What if the missile had landed on me or certainly one of my kids earlier than piercing the roof? Simply eager about it’s terrifying,” she stated.
“Anybody who says the battle has ended is mendacity. The ceasefire is an enormous lie, we reside in each day concern, and there’s no secure place.”
No ceasefire
Though a ceasefire in Gaza between Israel and Hamas has been in impact since October 2025, about 930 Palestinians have been killed and greater than 2,800 injured in continued Israeli assaults throughout this era.
Condo blocks, markets, autos, and cafes are nonetheless hit with out warning, leaving widespread destruction and trauma amongst civilians.
Some households are given pressured displacement orders by the Israeli army simply minutes earlier than their houses are become rubble. It’s by no means sufficient time to avoid wasting their belongings, and even when they survive, they’re among the many lots of of hundreds of different Palestinians trying to find a brand new dwelling in a devastated panorama.
Within the Shati refugee camp, west of Gaza Metropolis, 55-year-old Imad Khroub was sitting together with his household of their dwelling, celebrating the second day of Eid al-Adha, when his son, Saad, 31, acquired a telephone name from the Israeli army intelligence. The voice ordered them and different residents to depart the residence block, and quarter-hour later, an air strike levelled the constructing.
“We had been residing comfortable moments, however instantly everybody was crying, screaming, and operating… It was extraordinarily terrifying,” he advised Al Jazeera.
“How might anybody handle? We took nothing. We left with solely the garments we had been carrying.”
![Imad Khroub lost his home after an Israeli strike targeted the residential block where he lived in Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp, following an evacuation order issued only minutes before the attack [Abdelhakim Abu Riash/ Al Jazeera]](https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/873A1622-1780818187.jpg?w=770&resize=770%2C513&quality=80)
Inspecting the particles of his dwelling, Saad noticed that the years of onerous work and financial savings to organize his residence for his upcoming marriage ceremony had been decreased to nothing.
“It by no means occurred to me, even 1 %, that our home could be hit,” Saad stated.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights warned that Israel’s continued assaults on Gaza’s remaining residential blocks are creating an surroundings incompatible with human existence or dignity.
An space that has been the main target of Israeli air raids in latest months has been central Gaza, which has been much less closely broken through the genocide than different elements of the enclave, and so presents probably the most targets.
The centre stated “evacuation warnings” don’t give Israel authorized justification for the destruction of houses, nor take away the protections afforded to civilians beneath worldwide humanitarian regulation.
Amid repeated pressured displacement orders and bombings of houses, Khroub says the battle continues to comply with him in every single place, regardless of the ceasefire.
“We thought we had been fortunate and had survived and that our dwelling was nonetheless intact… however now we’re again to sq. one,” he stated. “The battle continues to be raging fiercely, solely in a quieter kind… and nobody is listening to us.”
