This week, as I stood on my mattress, ready to collapse with exhaustion, my phone suddenly rang. It was my cousin Raneen, her voice urgent and trembling: “Dalia, have you and your family evacuated? They’re about to bomb the tower beside you — and the one across from you. Hurry!”

I immediately started hearing neighbors screaming and people running through the streets in panic. Even now, I struggle to process what happened.

Because I live in a tower surrounded by others in Al-Rimal — a neighborhood in Gaza City dominated by high-rise residential buildings — I felt as though I were living in a ghost city the moment the Israeli occupation began destroying the towers. I knew the day of displacement would come, that I would one day be forced to leave everything behind. But I never imagined the

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