For civilians fleeing in Gaza, escape options are few
By ALEXANDRA ZAVIS
A lonely figure in a striped button-down shirt stood silently Tuesday among a crush of emergency workers and journalists, watching as rescuers with a crane tried to reach a foot sticking out from the rubble of a high-rise office tower.
Ahmed Shaban Derbass' brother and four sisters had escaped the relentless shelling that killed at least 74 people Sunday on the eastern outskirts of Gaza City. A friend offered them the keys to his office in the center of the city, where Israel had instructed civilians to take shelter.
But late Monday, as families across the Gaza Strip were gathering to break their daytime fast for the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, two Israeli rockets slammed into the tower.
The building's top floors collapsed. Derbass said his siblings were killed, along with a brother-in-law and five children ages 4 to 12.
The foot protruding from the fifth floor belonged to his sister Soura.
more
http://www.latimes.com/world/middleeast/la-fg-gaza-displacement-20140723-story.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
