From Death to Death: Stories of Escape from the Hell of Gaza
When war reaches its peak, major cities become open arenas of destruction and mass displacement, as is happening today in Gaza City.
On Tuesday, Israel announced it had launched a large-scale ground offensive against the city, defying international condemnation, as Palestinians fled the enclave’s largest urban center in waves amid relentless bombardment.
Israeli officials said the long-awaited incursion began on the city’s outskirts, following a week of intensified airstrikes and the leveling of high-rise buildings.
Defense Minister Israel Katz declared on Tuesday: “Gaza is burning,” adding that the army was working to ensure “the release of hostages and the defeat of Hamas.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described this phase of the war as “critical,” noting that the assault targeted what his government considers one of Hamas’s last remaining strongholds.
Escalation under accusations of “genocide”
The offensive comes as the United Nations and humanitarian organizations warn that the attack will worsen an already dire humanitarian crisis, with parts of Gaza officially declared in famine.
Around one million people—nearly half of the enclave’s population—live in Gaza City and its surroundings. Israel has sought to force residents to evacuate, but the army claimed that only about 40% had left so far, figures that could not be independently verified.
An independent UN investigation released Tuesday concluded that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza, finding that civilians had been “collectively targeted for their identity as Palestinians.”
Israel dismissed the report as “false” and called for the commission’s dissolution.
A recurring scene of devastation
For nearly two years, Gaza City had largely avoided the devastation inflicted on Rafah and Khan Younis in the south, but it now faces the same grim fate.
On Tuesday, at least 93 Palestinians were killed in northern Gaza alone, with more than 100 reported dead across the enclave, according to local health authorities.
After a night of intense bombardment, residents attempted to salvage their belongings while fleeing. International news agencies broadcast images of neighborhoods like Sheikh Radwan reduced to rubble, as families carried bags and blankets through the debris in search of shelter further south.
Overhead, Israeli drones hovered as locals described the strikes as some of the heaviest in months.
“Fear, fear, everything is fear,” said Maysar al-Adwan, drenched in sweat while carrying mattresses and blankets on his head.
Rawan al-Salmoni, a mother of four, sat on a sidewalk near a destroyed building, holding her youngest child. She admitted she thought she would die during the latest wave of airstrikes: “We said, by God, we are going to die here. It’s a miracle we survived.”
“From death to death”
For many, this was not the first displacement. Crowds packed the coastal al-Rashid highway, where traffic was gridlocked.
“Do you think we are leaving on a picnic?” asked Ahmed Abu al-Houl, standing on a small truck along Salah al-Din Street. “We are fleeing destruction and ruin. But we are moving from death to death, not from death to glory. The situation is unbearable.”
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk urged the international community to prevent Israel from overrunning Gaza City: “It is abundantly clear that this massacre must stop immediately.”
UNICEF warned that any further escalation would “multiply children’s suffering exponentially,” noting that 450,000 children in Gaza already face starvation, trauma, and the collapse of medical care.
The Palestinian presidency issued a statement calling the assault a “war crime against humanity” and appealed for urgent international intervention, particularly from the United States.
