Weeks after returning home, residents again flee under IDF fire

Aftermath of the bombing of a school turned shelter in the Tuffah neighborhood in Gaza City, April 4, 2025. (photo: Omar Ashtawy / APA Images) (source)

Israel bombed three schools-turned-shelters, intensifying attacks across Gaza City and ordering residents to evacuate. Eyewitnesses report that the Israeli army is sending booby-trapped vehicles into neighborhoods and detonating them remotely.

by Tareq S. Hajjaj, reposted from Mondoweiss, April 4, 2025

The Israeli caller was on the phone talking to the Civil Defense workers. Identifying himself as from the Israeli army, he informed the workers that Israel would bomb the Dar al-Arqam school in Gaza City’s eastern Tuffah neighborhood a second time. The first time had already taken place an hour before the call.

The bombing of the school killed 29 people on Thursday, and almost a hundred people were injured and stuck under the rubble. The Civil Defense team had been working on pulling out the injured with basic tools and bare hands.

It was in the middle of these rescue efforts that the Israeli army representative said the school would be bombed again. The Civil Defense workers pleaded that they be given enough time to get the injured out from under the rubble.

“We’re working with our hands. Are you only giving us an hour to search and pull people out?” the Civil Defense worker said, as shown in video footage filmed for Mondoweiss.

“Yes,” the Israeli caller responded.

In the same hour, the army bombed the nearby Fahd School, killing three people.

The Gaza Health Ministry said in its daily report that over 100 people had arrived dead in Gaza’s hospitals over the past 24 hours.

“The bombing is non-stop. We are talking about a massacre in every sense of the word,” Mahmoud Basal, a spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defense, told Mondoweiss. “The targeting of more than one building at Dar al-Arqam School has resulted in dozens of martyrs, including children, women, and entire families who were targeted and killed.”

“It is a shelter for displaced people,” Basal added, indicating that the Civil Defense’s network of first responders is unable to keep up with the scale of the killings.

Inside the Dar al-Arqam school where civil defense crews were working, a harrowing video circulating online shows a man trapped under the rubble as rescue teams attempt to extract him. The man is caught between collapsed slabs of concrete, and the teams are unable to remove him. They are eventually forced to cover him and evacuate the area before it is bombed again — it was around the same time that the army had called — leaving him to his fate. In the video, the Civil Defense worker and the men helping him could be heard saying, “We will all die if we stay here.”

Booby-trapped vehicles blow up neighborhood blocks

In the early hours of Thursday morning, the Israeli army spokesperson posted an evacuation warning to the residents of al-Shuja’iyya, one of Gaza City’s largest neighborhoods in the eastern part of the city. Families in the area called their relatives west of the city to ask them for shelter, but they found that their relatives had also received the same evacuation orders.

Most of Gaza City has received such orders over the past few days, leaving residents with nowhere to go.

Bilal al-Horkily, 34, holds his bag in one hand and his daughter in another as he evacuates al-Shuja’iyya, with his family of five following close behind.

“We tried to stay as much as we could, but they’re bombing and shelling everything,” he says in video testimony for Mondoweiss. “We left, but we don’t know where to go.”

Bilal explains that every day, the Israeli army has been bombing and shelling al-Shuja’iyya, but Thursday morning witnessed a sharp increase in attacks in both scale and intensity.

“Israel makes it impossible for us to live,” Bilal says. “Displacement is the most painful journey a human can make with his family. And the army is forcing us to do it every few weeks.”

“This is the ninth time I am displaced during the war, and we do not know how many times we will do it again,” he adds.

According to eyewitnesses, Israeli tanks and bulldozers entered the heart of al-Shuja’iyya on Thursday, invading the area from the east.

In a residential block populated by members of the Jundiyya family, survivors of a massive explosion that destroyed an entire block recount that the Israeli army had planted a “robot” in the area loaded with explosives. The army then detonated it, destroying the entire area on Thursday at dawn.

“In the early hours of Thursday morning, we saw unusual activity,” Thaer Jundiyya, a resident of the area, told Mondoweiss. “There was shelling, artillery, and heavy fire from quadcopter drones. At approximately 5:00 a.m., a tank, a bulldozer, and an explosive robot entered the area. They planted it inside the neighborhood and detonated the entire residential block.”

Residents recount how the Israeli army uses these “robots” to wreak massive havoc within residential blocks, loaded with barrels of explosives that cause maximum damage. Those who saw the “robots” said they resembled armored personnel carriers (APC), which were remotely controlled by the Israeli army. The army entered the area and planted the APCs in specific locations to cause greater damage.

This isn’t the first time the Israeli army has used this method in the Gaza Strip. During its invasion of the Jabalia refugee camp, the Israeli army detonated drones inside the camp in densely populated residential areas. Similar reports emerged of remote-controlled APCs being used to detonate areas of Kamal Adwan Hospital during the army’s siege of the medical compound in December 2024.

Eyewitness descriptions of these remote-controlled APC “robots” and how they were used are consistent with Israel’s documented use of M113 armored personnel carriers, an outdated Israeli military vehicle that has been retrofitted with explosive devices and operated by remote control throughout Israel’s recent war on Gaza.

“All the houses have been inhabited since our return from the north,” Jundiyya told Mondoweiss. “We are in our homes, and the area is very crowded. But the army detonated the bombs, disregarding the presence of residents, children, and women.”

“We pulled dozens of martyrs from under the rubble, and we are still extracting the remains and the martyrs,” Jundiyya added.

Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent, and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union. He studied English Literature at Al-Azhar University in Gaza. He started his career in journalism in 2015 working as a news writer and translator for the local newspaper, Donia al-Watan. He has reported for Elbadi, Middle East Eye, and Al Monitor. Follow him on Twitter at @Tareqshajjaj.

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