Hamad City is named for the former emir of the Gulf petro-state, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani, who laid the foundation stone on a visit 11 years ago. Inaugurated in 2016, it was still among the newest projects in the Gaza Strip.

The first flats -- more than 1,000 of them -- were provided to Palestinians whose homes were destroyed in Israel's war on the Gaza Strip two years earlier.

On Saturday it happened again, a day after a seven-day truce brokered by Egypt and Qatar expired on Friday.

First their phones pinged around noon with an "immediate" evacuation order SMS sent by the Israeli army.

Around an hour later, five Israeli air strikes rained down on the neighbourhood in the space of just two minutes.

Bombs slammed into the pale apartment blocks one by one, reducing them largely to rubble and sending a huge pall of black smoke into the sky, as people fled and cries of 'help!' and 'ambulance!' rang out.

"At least we got through it," 26-year-old Nader Abu Warda told AFP, amazed he was still alive.

No phones
 

The Israeli military has divided the Gaza Strip into 2,300 "blocs" and is now sending SMS messages to residents telling them to leave before they launch the strikes which they say will "eliminate Hamas".

The Gaza health ministry says Israel's invasion has killed more than 15,000 people, most of them women and children, since it was launched eight weeks ago.

The United Nations humanitarian agency, OCHA, has highlighted that the warning messages do not indicate where the recipients should go.

Ibrahim al-Jamal, a civil servant in his 40s, said he does not have any "internet, any electricity or even a radio to receive information" and that he has "never seen this map" setting out the different blocs.

"Many people in Gaza have never heard of it and it wouldn't matter anyway as the bombings are taking place everywhere," he said.

Humanitarian bodies say the most vulnerable in Gaza are the estimated 1.7 million displaced people.

Many of them do not have access to phones and have to rely on warning leaflets dropped by planes, not visible from inside an apartment.

'Go where?'
 

According to the Gaza Strip's Civil Defence emergency and rescue organisation, in recent weeks "hundreds of displaced families" had been taking refuge in 3,000 apartments at Hamad City.

Mohammed Foura, 21, already displaced once from Gaza City, told AFP that half an hour before the strike he had been warned by other residents to flee.

They shouted "get out, get out", he said, as families piled their belongings into cars or carried them away in enormous bundles.

Nader Abu Warda fled Jabalia, near Gaza City, at the start of the war and no longer knows which way to go or what to do.

He, his wife and three children had been staying in a friend's apartment in the complex.

"They told us 'Gaza City is a war zone', now it's Khan Younis," he said. "Yesterday, they were saying 'evacuate the east of Khan Younis'. Today, they say 'evacuate the west'," he added, visibly exasperated.

"Where are we going now, into the sea? Where are we going to put our children to bed?"

*This story was edited by Ahram Online