Basheer al-Ghandour, who fled Beit Lahia for Jabalia after the attack, told the BBC people were sleeping when suddenly “intense bombing” hit overnight.
“It came from all sides – air strikes and warships. My brother’s house collapsed. There were 25 people inside,” he said.
He said 11 people were injured and five killed, including his nieces, aged five and 18, and a 15-year-old nephew. He and others tried to free relatives from the rubble.
“My brother’s wife is still under the rubble – we didn’t manage to rescue her. Because of how intense the bombing was, we had to flee,” he said.
“We didn’t take anything with us – no furniture, no food, no flour. We even left in bare feet.”
Another survivor, Yousif Salem, told reporters he and his three children had “just escaped death”.
“An air strike hit our neighbours’ home – none of them survived,” he said.
He said artillery shells began hitting near their house as they were trapped inside. When he tried to leave, a quadcopter drone opened fire, he said.
He made a second attempt under heavy shelling, he said. All roads were blocked, but they managed to find a side road.
“We escaped only minutes before Israeli tanks encircled the area,” he said.
According to local residents, the attack began with smoke bomb barrages followed by intense artillery shelling from nearby Israeli positions.
Tanks then began advancing toward Al-Salateen neighbourhood in western Beit Lahia.
Witnesses reported that Israeli armoured vehicles surrounded a school sheltering hundreds of displaced civilians.
Israeli aircraft dropped leaflets early Friday over several areas in north Gaza calling on residents to evacuate the areas immediately, raising fears the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) was expanding its military operation in one of Gaza’s most densely populated regions.
The evacuation orders sparked panic among families who have been displaced multiple times since the war began. Many have nowhere else to go.
“I swear I don’t know where we’re going,” said Sana Marouf, who was fleeing with her family on a donkey cart in Gaza City.
“We don’t have mattresses, blankets, food or water.”
She said she had seen people “torn to pieces” overnight. “It was a black night. They were relentlessly bombing us.”
