The ground offensive may not have started, but the frontline in the Hamas-Israeli war is already intense and dangerous.
About to get out of our vehicle, the gathered journalists start running. Rocket attack, right above us, fired from Gaza — and then quickly the boom, boom, of the Iron Dome, Israel’s air-defence system — intercepting the Hamas assault.
We run for cover, an unfinished property, and find a safe room, the standard build for dwellings in such close proximity to the Palestinian enclave — and the place where, we’ve learned, so many Israelis had sheltered on October 7, and where so many had died — gunned down, grenades thrown, smoked out.
Another rocket’s white trail streaks high through the sky
Another rocket — heading for Tel Aviv, we’re told. We watch, as its white trail streaks high through the sky. We get on air, watching outgoing Israeli artillery fire and air strikes pounding the high-rise apartment blocks in Northern Gaza. Residents told to leave by Israel, many still staying. How do they live like this? There’d been reports that morning of a Hamas incursion at a nearby kibbutz. Tensions are high.
We look up and, dropping like confetti from the sky, leaflets for Gaza’s civilians telling them to move south
And then, on the floor, scraps of paper. We look up and, dropping like confetti from the sky, leaflets for Gaza’s civilians — a map telling them to move south, as Israel tries to push through its evacuation order.
Tens of thousands of Palestinians have fled. Most with no car, they bundle babies and belongings, moving south, refugees on the road. In Khan Younis, one Gazan tells us they are 80 to two rooms, one toilet, no water, no food.
There is an unreal quality now to the Israeli settlements around Gaza. We drive through Sderot, subject — that day — to an evacuation order, where more large apartment blocks are still being built, standing empty. When will Israelis move back? It will be months, maybe years.
