Gazans are being phoned before strikes (Image: Getty)
Those living in the Gaza Strip have told of receiving of the ‘most terrifying call of their life’ after Israeli forces phoned them to warn them to evacuate, and save his neighbours, ahead of missiles strikes on their homes.
Mahmoud Shaheen, a dentist from Gaza was one of those who received a phone call from a private number, warning him to evacuate the surrounding area. The call came early in the morning of Thursday, October 19, after eight heavy days of bombing from Israel.
The 40-year-old had been in his flat in al-Zahra, a middle class area in the north of Gaza strip that had managed to avoid the first week of airstrikes.
He left his third-floor flat after hearing screams of “You need to escape” and warnings from frightened people that “they will bomb the towers”.
As he left his home in search of a safe place to hide, he received a phone call from an unknown number.
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Hundreds of residents were affected (Image: Getty)
The man spoke in perfect Arabic to Mahmoud down the line, saying he was from Israeli intelligence.
The call, which lasted over an hour, informed the dentist – who had no idea why he had be chosen to carry out this task – that they wanted to bomb three towers, and they wanted him to evacuate the surrounding area.
The dentist was suddenly responsible for the mass evacuation of hundreds of people, whose lives were in his hands. Mahmoud asked the caller, who identified himself as Abu Khaled, to prove that the threat was real.
He asked Khaled to shoot two warning shots to verify the validity of the call. Two warning shots ensued.
Mahmoud led a mass evacuation of his neighbours, watching his neighbourhood explode in front of his eyes.
That day, hundreds of people were left homeless as the Israeli army bombed numerous residential blocks, made up of hundreds of apartments.
Mahmoud said he couldn’t understand why they were bombing his neighbourhood (Image: Getty)
Mahmoud said he could not understand why they would want to bomb his neighbourhood: “I tried my best to stop him. I asked, ‘Why do you want to bomb?’
“He said, ‘There are some things that we see that you don’t see.’ It is an order from people bigger than me and you, and we have an order to bomb,” reported the BBC.
The dentist then ran around the neighbourhood, screaming for people to evacuate, trying his best to make sure nobody was left behind. People were running out of their homes with the few possessions they could grab, many in pyjamas or prayer clothes.
Less than two hours later, a post on their community Facebook group said three towers had been “wiped out completely”.
Mahmoud had lived in al-Zahra for 15 years, bringing up his children in the neighbourhood.
He said: “I told him al-Zahra is a civilian area. No one is a stranger here… I tried to make him understand. It is not a border area, we have not had previous clashes. It was always an area outside of trouble”
Those who could, returned to their homes, thinking they were safe.
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They evacuated to the University of Palestine (Image: Getty)
Mahmoud’s tower block had not been bombed in the morning attack, so he had gone back to his flat. In the evening, as he was finishing his night-time prayers, he noticed a missed call on his phone.
He said his heart sank, as he immediately knew what the context of the call would be. A different man was on the line this time and he introduced himself as Daoud.
Mahmoud said Daoud knew intimate details about his life, including the name of his son.
“He started telling me: ‘Did you see how they [Hamas] slaughtered those children with knives?’ I told him that according to our Islamic religion, this is forbidden,” he shared with the BBC.
The targets for the next bombing were the two buildings next to the three that had been destroyed earlier that day, in addition to a second tower block.
The tower blocks were flattened by airstrikes (Image: Getty)
The voice told Mahmoud to evacuate the area again.
“You need to give me time”, Mahmoud replied.
His neighbourhood was almost in complete darkness now. Electricity had gone, and their only light was from phones and torches.
“It was absolute horror,” one resident recalled. “Can’t see clearly. Just evacuate. I just focus on being safe with family”, said another.
Mahmoud kept the caller on the line to buy as much time as he could – but as he watched the destruction, the voice informed him the bombing would continue, with another 20 tower blocks due to be targeted.
Mahmoud led the crowd of hundreds of families, elderly, and children, to the University of Palestine, which the voice told him was safe.
Their tower blocks had been completely flattened by the Israeli strikes. The crowd stayed at the university all night, nobody sleeping, reports said.
At noon, he said the bombing stopped, and he returned to his flat, which had not been destroyed in the strikes, but severely damaged. The neighbourhood and community was now gone.
He took his family to another region of Gaza, as there was nothing left for him in al-Zahra. He said he is staying at a friends’, in a crowded house filled with people.
“You could die at any second now”
