GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip — Ahlam Ahmad, 32, fled her house in Beit Lahiya's Salatin neighborhood, in the northern Gaza Strip, after it was subjected to direct risk from the mounting number of Israeli artillery shells fired continuously and at random.

Ahlam told Al-Monitor that the shelling that hit the area came from Israeli gunboats anchored off the coast of the Gaza Strip, in the Mediterranean Sea. "In addition to artillery shelling, Israeli navy boats were sporadically targeting their missiles at our homes, thus scaring our children,” she said, adding that Israeli warplanes used other ways also to terrorize citizens in those areas — by dropping thousands of leaflets instructing people to flee and inciting them against the Palestinian resistance, thus leading to their displacement.

Rana Sultan, 24, now lives in one of the schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). She left her house with her two children and headed to her family's home to escape the continuous Israeli bombardment, but the missiles reached the area, which is relatively far from her home in Beit Hanoun.

Rana fled without taking anything with her, not even money, while her husband decided to stay behind to guard the house. She told Al-Monitor: “We came to my parents' house without any money, clothes or children's necessities. I then left my family’s house and headed to the UNRWA school to escape the shelling that reached a few meters away from us.”