On the first day of Eid al-Adha, 31-year-old Widad Al-Husari sat with her family on a rooftop in Gaza City, trying to create a festive atmosphere amid war and displacement. As children played in a tent, an explosion shattered the evening. Widad rushed to grab her three-year-old son Rafiq, but in the panic, they fell through a hole created by a missile that had pierced the building.
The family found Widad clinging to her child, hanging from metal rods several floors below, with a fire raging beneath them from a detonated warhead. “I didn’t notice the openings… It was dark and smoky. I was holding my child when I suddenly fell with him,” Widad told Al Jazeera. She points to three holes in the terrace, one of which she fell through. “I could feel the heat of the fire… Everyone was screaming, and I was hanging until my husband and brothers pulled me out.”
The strike killed seven people, including two children and two women. Eighteen were injured, including four-year-old niece Sara al-Khalout, who was thrown into the courtyard and remains in intensive care. Sixty-year-old Zuhdia Azzam, living on a lower floor, was hosting Eid guests when a missile hit. In an instant, her 12-year-old granddaughter Sidra was killed, and 11-year-old Sham had her leg amputated.
Widad’s family once lived in a comfortable home in the Zeitoun neighborhood, destroyed in November 2023. They now shelter on a rooftop rented by her brother. “Anyone who says the war has ended is lying. The ceasefire is a big lie; we live in daily fear, and there is no safe place,” she said.
In the Shati refugee camp, 55-year-old Imad Khroub was celebrating the second day of Eid when his son Saad received a call from Israeli military intelligence ordering them to leave within 15 minutes. An airstrike then leveled the building. “We were living happy moments, but suddenly everyone was crying, screaming, and running… It was extremely terrifying,” Imad said. Saad saw his life savings for his wedding apartment reduced to rubble.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights warned that Israel’s continued attacks on residential blocks create an environment incompatible with human dignity. It stated that “evacuation warnings” do not legally justify home destruction under international humanitarian law. Imad concluded: “We thought we were lucky and our home was intact… but now we are back to square one. The war is still raging fiercely, only in a quieter form… and no one is paying attention to us.”
Source: www.aljazeera.com