Palestinian Walid al-Shawa and his fiancee Naila al-Jalis sit at a neighbor's home after their house was knocked down in an Israeli raid earlier this week in Gaza city, on March 28, 2019. (Xinhua/Stringer)
GAZA, March 29 (Xinhua) -- In the Palestinian Gaza Strip, wedding plans of a Palestinian couple were torn apart after an Israeli airstrike destroyed the residential building that housed their future "nest."
The financial conditions of 26-year-old Walid al-Shawa, a taxi driver from Gaza city, are so difficult and cannot help him rent an apartment ahead of his wedding. That is why he rented a room at his sister's apartment, who lives in a residential building of several floors in Gaza City.
However, the whole building was knocked down in an Israeli raid during a round of violence between Israeli army and Gaza militant groups earlier this week.
"Our happiness turned into a nightmare...we became homeless," Shawa said as he checked his destroyed furniture. "I have prepared the room and supplied it with everything, but it was destroyed in a fraction."
Over the past weeks, the young man was busy preparing for his wedding as he painted the room, placed the furniture and even booked the wedding hall.
Monday overnight, Egypt and the United Nations brokered a new ceasefire agreement between the Palestinian factions and Israel after an exchange of fire that lasted for several hours.
During the short round of violence, Israeli warplanes and helicopters carried out dozens of airstrikes overnight between Monday and Tuesday, targeting 15 militant sites.
Israel hit the apartment building which it said was used by the Islamic Hamas movement that rules the Gaza Strip.
"The Israeli propaganda is not correct and what was targeted is a residential building that includes helpless civilians who are homeless now," Shawa told Xinhua as he struggled to hold his tear.
Shawa's fiancee Naila al-Jalis sat next to her future husband and inspected the destruction with deep sadness.
"I'm very frustrated, the day that all girls wait for has become a nightmare...I do not know if we will be able to get married after we lost our room," al-Jalis told Xinhua.
The destruction of the residential building has caused much sufferings to the residents of the building who have been turned homeless.
"We were in the house but suddenly we heard a noise in the building and the neighbors told us to evacuate the home quickly because Israeli jets would bomb it," Hiba al-Masri, one of the residents, told Xinhua.
Al-Masri, who is a mother of five children, said she could not take any of their belongings or furniture as they only had 10 minutes to get out of the building.
Israel usually sends warnings before targeting homes, buildings or stores in residential areas to avoid civilian casualty.
In the wake of Israel's raids on Monday evening, dozens of Palestinians were forced to evacuate their homes in cold weather as 13 families, including 44 children and 14 women, were left homeless for one night.
The Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) said Israel's latest airstrikes on Gaza have been the fiercest in recent months and have displaced scores of Palestinian civilians.
The center said in a statement that "two million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have lived for 12 hours in an atmosphere of terror and fear with the continuation of raids targeting multiple sites, some of which are located in densely populated areas."
