Deaths and attacks in Gaza, news and more

Palestinians leave Gaza City and other parts of northern Gaza on November 18, carrying some belongings, walking along a road leading to the southern parts of the territory. Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

CNN spoke to hundreds of Palestinians who fled northern Gaza to the south on Saturday.

Crowds of people – women, children, the elderly and the wounded – lined Salah al-Din Street carrying bags, food and water. Most were on foot. Some traveled by donkey and cart.

Some said their journey would be more than five kilometers.

Israeli tanks were seen on the side of the road, and sometimes the sound of gunfire sent people running, parents separated from their children amid the chaos.

At one point, the evacuees placed a sheet over blankets covering the bodies on the street.

Among the evacuees were Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qitra and journalist Ibrahim Shakora, who took refuge in Al-Shifa Hospital.

“The Israeli soldiers bombed the intensive care unit of al-Shifa hospital and threatened us to bomb the lower floor, so we decided to leave,” Shakora told CNN.

“A hospital is no longer a hospital. It is a military station. No one attacked them from there.
A woman carries the moment the sheltered school in Jabalya collapsed.

“My daughter was killed and my son-in-law martyred,” said Shirin Jude.
“Three [otras] Girls and three women also died. The child was pulled out from under the rubble. All my children are barefoot. “I grabbed them and we ran away.”

Um Muhammad Hamada, Sheikh Ratwan’s mother, was sitting by the roadside with her three children and two bird cages.

The explosion of gunshots made her shudder and her daughter covered her ears.

“These birds are very important to me. They are like souls saved by God, like we are saved,” he said.

“I couldn’t leave them.”