When Hamas fires rockets at Israel, advanced warning detectors set off alarms in targeted neighborhoods, civilians flee to an extensive network of bomb shelters, and the vaunted Iron Dome system works to intercept projectiles in the air.  

But in Gaza, none of those high-tech defenses were available to protect Maisara Baroud, 47, when his apartment building was hit by Israeli airstrikes Monday night. The only thing that saved him and his family: A neighbor yelling from the street.  

The neighbor received a call from Israeli military, giving him a heads up that a strike at a nearby residential building was imminent. Still, the neighbor told Baroud and the 15 other family members living in Baroud's building — including nine children — to get out. 

The first strike wrecked most of the six buildings on the block, including Baroud's.  

"My building was no longer livable — it was a skeleton of a house left," he said. "The doors were destroyed, the building's exterior walls were all gone, the windows shattered."  

Still, Baroud and others assumed the worst was over and headed back into the building to salvage their belongings. Minutes later, the neighbor received a follow-up call from the Israeli military that a follow-up bombing was coming, and the families fled again. 

A second strike destroyed Baroud's home, reducing his building and his art studio to rubble. 

This is the reality for Palestinians living in Gaza without the protection of a robust civil defense infrastructure. With no air raid sirens or bomb shelters, the more than 2 million Palestinians living in the besieged territory — half of whom are children — rely on rare phone calls or text messages from the Israeli military to alert them of imminent strikes.    

"In Gaza, we don't have anything ... you have nowhere to go, no bomb shelters, no refuge, you are in the street," Baroud said. "If you're lucky enough to even get an alert to tell you to get out of the house, you leave saying, 'Thank God.'"  

The lack of protection serves as a stark contrast to the civil defense systems of Israel, which has faced intense barrages of rocket fire from Hamas in recent days. Israel boasts elaborate and technologically advanced capabilities — ranging from early radar detection to the Iron Dome — meant to protect its civilians in the event of an attack.  

In Gaza, the call or text alerts are far from guaranteed and — at most — give residents a few minutes to evacuate. Often, it's just a guessing game.  

Read more about the difficult circumstances for those in Gaza.

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