An extraordinary warning call to a Palestinian dentist starts the panicked evacuation of a Gazan neighbourhood.
By Alice Cuddy
BBC News, Jerusalem
The call to Mahmoud Shaheen came at dawn.
It was Thursday 19 October at about 06:30, and Israel had been bombing Gaza for 12 days straight.
He'd been in his third-floor, three-bedroom flat in al-Zahra, a middle-class area in the north of the Gaza Strip. Until now, it had been largely untouched by air strikes.
He'd heard a rising clamour outside. People were screaming. "You need to escape," somebody in the street shouted, "because they will bomb the towers".
This story made me cry. I am disabled and not always mobile. There are loved ones in my family who are elderly, cannot walk far, and depend on medication.
I cannot even imagine what it must be like to try to evacuate at short notice, with nowhere to go.
It is brutal, just incredibly sad. Israel’s military has a long history of weaponizing disability, as you may know, and it’s been illuminating to examine that further.
When you’re ready, the excellent disability-focused podcast Death Panel offered some insights I had never encountered elsewhere. Please listen to the following episodes on SoundCloud or wherever you would like. I hope they can offer some solace and empowerment.
From what it looks like, North, East and West, are more of a "for sure" than a "maybe".
I also understand why people choose to die at home, it's somewhat harder to understand why anyone with a chance to live would willingly stay in the area, since all of Gaza has been reeking of "death camp" for well over a decade.
Ah yes, please leave your home, with everything in it included, all your memories, possessions, everything and leave within 2 hours "south". Just generally "south". Oh and you can't come back btw, your house wont exist.