![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/05\/0076c3c2-3ab7-4d96-ad63-0407a429b4df.jpg.webp.webp\")
Rushdi Abualouf<\/strong>Gaza correspondent<\/p>\n
Gaza residents have described last night as \u201chell\u201d as Israel’s prime minister confirms that a “powerful operation” has been launched in Gaza City.<\/p>\n
Israeli warplanes carried out a wave of heavy airstrikes overnight across Gaza City, with concentrated bombardment on the central al-Daraj neighbourhood, the Beach refugee camp in the west, and Sheikh Radwan in the north.<\/p>\n
The attacks were accompanied by artillery fire, drone attacks and helicopter gunship activity, leaving residents describing the night as \u201chell”.<\/p>\n
Ghazi al-Aloul, a displaced resident from northern Gaza, tells the BBC he is now sleeping at the entrance of al-Quds Hospital in Tel al-Hawa, south-west Gaza. \u201cI did not choose this, I was forced after leaving the home where my family and I had been sheltering for nearly a month after fleeing the north \u201c. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe bombardment has been insane for hours, and the army is threatening to demolish several residential buildings in the area,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
Sami Abu Dalal, from al-Daraj in central Gaza, describes the night as \u201cextremely difficult\u201d. He says residents endured continuous strikes, drone fire, and the detonation of explosives. \u201cWhole residential blocks were levelled on top of their inhabitants, leaving many dead, missing, or injured,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n
In Tel al-Hawa, resident Taysir Abu Diya tells the BBC the assault appeared to be advancing along three main fronts, from north middle Sheikh Radwan towards al-Jisr, al-Ayoun and the central market, from al-Sudaniya pushing through al-Karama and intelligence compound areas towards al-Maqousi and the Beach camp, and from Tel al-Hawa towards al-Khoor roundabout and al-Dahdouh.<\/p>\n
He says the advances were accompanied by the use of booby-trapped vehicles, intense airstrikes, and heavy shelling. Meanwhile, Apache helicopters hovered over different parts of the city, firing continuously.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gaza residents describe night of ‘hell’ under Israeli bomardmentpublished at 09:23 BST 09:23 BST Rushdi AbualoufGaza correspondent Gaza…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428535,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[12,26],"class_list":{"0":"post-428534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-world"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115213283188825568","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428535"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}