Weary families trudge through Gaza streets, trying to flee the north before Israel's invasion

DEIR AL-BALAH, Gaza Strip (AP) — Some fled home with suitcases jammed with clothes and heirlooms and photographs. Some left with stacks of foam mattresses tied to car roofs. They took buses and vans and cars and carts pulled by donkeys.

Many walked. Many had nothing with them but exhausted family members trudging through streets littered with rubble. All of them were trying to get to safety.

“We left the house without food, without water and without clothes,” said Mohammad Hillis, sitting at a wooden school desk scarred by generations of students in a makeshift refugee camp in central Gaza. “We left without taking anything with us.”

He said about 150 people lived in his building in their northern Gaza town. All left after clouds of Israeli leaflets began dropping from the sky, warning civilians to flee the north within 24 hours.