One warning from the Israeli military sends hundreds of displaced Palestinians running.
Midday last Saturday they are told a residential building they are sheltering in or near will be bombed soon.
"Urgent warning to the residents of Gaza City … specifically in the Al-Roya building marked in red and the adjacent tents … the IDF will attack the building soon …" the Israel Defense Forces's (IDF) Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, posted on X.
They hurry to move away, taking what little belongings they can carry and leaving everything else behind.
"We took down the umbrellas, emptied our belongings and took down our tents," Mazen Al-Naffar, who was sheltering near the Al-Roya tower, told the ABC.
They wait all day and all night with no shelter.
"We slept in the streets, no blankets, no pillows, we left our stuff as it was," his brother, Khamees Al-Naffar, said.
About 15 tents among the dozens in their area are for them, their brothers and married sons and daughters, each with about eight family members.
The next morning, the building is still standing. So, they return, not knowing what their next move should be.
"We came back at 6am, and since then we are in disarray, sit or don't sit, eat or don't eat, we don't know what to do," Khamees Al-Naffar said.
Later that evening, about 5pm, they receive another warning from the IDF, and this time it comes with a call and a countdown. They have less than an hour to evacuate again.
People start throwing their belongings out of the building's windows, hauling them away in carts.
Children run and ride their bikes, others carry a couple of backpacks.
Two more calls, half an hour to go, 10 minutes to go. The streets had by now mostly emptied with only a few people moving around seemingly unaware of the imminent strike.
"On the eleventh minute exactly, they struck the building. So, it took about 50 minutes, and they hit the building," Khamees Al-Naffar said, adding that there were several injuries.
In the past week alone, as Israel intensifies its assault to completely capture Gaza City, dozens of other high-rises, many with apartments housing families that have already been displaced multiple times, have met the same fate.
A 'mighty hurricane' of air strikes
Israel has dramatically ramped up its attacks in Gaza City in the past week since announcing its plans for a complete takeover in early August. After weeks of anticipation and daily strikes, it began a targeted campaign of destroying high-rises on Friday, September 5.
Residents had been determined to stay despite the destruction, but now, after a week of heavy bombardment, more than 200,000 people have left, Israel says.
"Now the bolt must be removed from the gates of hell in Gaza," Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote on X after the first warning for a high-rise was issued.
"When the door is opened, it will not be closed, and IDF activity will intensify."
On Sunday, the Al-Roya tower was the third high-rise to be hit in as many days, then on Monday, 30 multistorey buildings and dozens more were destroyed in one go, Mr Katz announced.
"A mighty hurricane will hit the skies of Gaza City today, and the roofs of the terror towers will shake," he wrote earlier that day, vowing the strip will be destroyed unless Hamas surrenders.
A week later, on the following Friday, the IDF said it had struck more than 500 structures in five waves across three areas: Daraj Tuffah, al-Furqan and al-Shati.
Israel says these "wide-scale strikes" will keep coming and intensify, releasing graphics showing dozens of buildings marked for destruction near ones already destroyed.
The IDF claims it is targeting Hamas and high-rises "that had been converted into terrorist infrastructure, including cameras, observation command centers, sniper and anti-tank firing positions, and command-and-control compounds".
And that it needs to "dismantle" them to disrupt Hamas's "operational readiness, and reduce the threat to IDF troops" to "pave the way for manoeuvring forces" as part of "the next stage of operation 'Gideon's Chariots II.'"
The IDF rarely provides verifiable evidence of any of these claims beyond statements and its own generated imagery.
Israeli human rights group B'Tselem spokesperson Yair Dvir says this destruction, which has been happening since the start of the war, is yet another example of how the IDF is "directly and systematically attacking the population".
"The goal is to destroy all Gaza City … and they just use whatever means they use. They [aren't concerned] about life, people, they [aren't concerned] about international law," Mr Dvir said.
So far more than 78 per cent of all structures in the strip — including schools, hospitals and mosques — have already been damaged, according to satellite imagery analysis by UNOSAT. A total of 192,812 structures have been affected, with more than half completely destroyed.
Thousands of people already displaced several times have sought shelter in the remaining buildings and the surrounding empty lands.
Mazen and Khamees Al-Naffar had lived in the Zaytoun neighbourhood nearby before their house was destroyed and they were displaced.
They settled near Al-Roya tower, itself a five-storey apartment building home to more than 30 families as well as shops, a clinic and a gym.
Almost all buildings being targeted are said to have been either residential or commercial, housing people, shops and offices.
Gaza-based NGO Palestinian Centre for Human Rights said its headquarters were located in another tower, also called Al-Roya, which was bombed on Monday.
"Al-Roya Tower, composed of 12 floors, is a civilian building that hosts media offices, medical clinics, sports facilities, and other civilian offices and companies," it said on X in reply to the evacuation warning, adding it was already bombarded, extensively damaged, raided by the IDF and "used as a military base during its previous ground operations".
'No logic in these attacks'
After some of the air strikes, the IDF's Arabic spokesperson, who publishes the warnings beforehand, posts again confirming the hits.
Like many previous strikes on civilian infrastructure it's justified by saying the building was being used by Hamas. And, like many previous strikes, he says that "several measures were taken to avoid the possibility of harming civilians".
But testimony from Palestinians affected by the air strikes, the many who are injured or killed, and footage of the aftermath show those measures are not enough.
"This is my tent and this is my brothers, you can barely see them, there is no trace," Mazen Al-Naffar said as he pointed to the destruction around him which included food supplies, drinking water containers, furniture and ripped tarp.
"Here are the pillows and this is what's left of a mattress and a blanket. I mean if we want to sleep, we'd be sleeping on rocks tonight."
He also lamented the state of unrest he and others were put through for nearly 30 hours not knowing whether the strike was coming or not after the first warning.
"[They] issued an order and then cancelled it, so today we don't know was it going to be cancelled or executed, and then they executed it an hour later," Mazen Al-Naffar said.
Gaza City Mayor Yahya Sarraj says that the destruction caused by the IDF "often appears random, aiming to spread fear and force people to leave the city and head south to the areas that are claimed to be safe".
Israel's message through the air strikes has been that civilians should leave Gaza City and go south to the so-called humanitarian zone in Al-Mawasi — both for their safety and to receive aid.
But people have been reluctant to leave because they do not trust Israel's directions, Cr Sarraj says. They also don't trust that the "humanitarian zones" will be safe.
B'tselem's Mr Dvir said there is no use in trying to find the "logic in these attacks" or to make sense of exactly why and how the IDF chooses to strike buildings and issue warnings, as it was all part of existing tactics of "violence, force, and psychological threatening".
"Why they warn a few hours before, and bomb here and bomb there. Of course it's all part of systematically attacking [Palestinians], physically and psychologically, to push them out of Gaza," he said.
Go south
Israel called on Gazans to move south when it announced an expansion to the humanitarian area on Saturday, much of which overlapped with existing militarised zones.
On Monday, it issued a sweeping displacement order for the whole of north Gaza, only small parts of which were not already covered by existing orders, reducing the area untouched by orders to only 11 per cent of the strip.
"I say to the residents of Gaza, take this opportunity and listen to me carefully: you have been warned — leave now!" Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday.
Israel says it has set up new aid points and released images showing "there are vacant spots in the humanitarian zone for setting up tents".
It claims 200,000 people have already heeded the warnings and moved.
But many are not convinced there is much space left, with 1 million people already crowded there, nor that it is any safer or offers better conditions.
"People have gone there, paid to rent cars and then came back because they couldn't find space," Mazen Al-Naffar said.
Cr Sarraj has also noted that families who tried to reach the south in search of safety ended up returning to the city.
"They said that they did not find any suitable place to live there, as there is extreme overcrowding and a severe lack of services," he says.
"Consequently, this has not encouraged many residents of Gaza to move to the south, and they prefer to remain in Gaza City rather than leave it.
"They prefer to stay in the city despite the harshness of the conditions, the lack of safety, and the absence of means for a dignified life," Cr Sarraj said.
"They would rather live close to their neighbourhoods and their homes."
Additional reporting by
