It was the head that was hit. A precise shot. The frail bodies of three children lie in a pool of blood on the asphalt in the Al-Fallujah neighborhood of Jabaliya, in the north of the Gaza Strip. The video, published on October 15, focuses a little further on the body of a man, with torn flesh.
“There are not enough words to describe the horror of what we see in Jabaliya, says Mohammed Abu Loay, a young recruit to the Gaza civil defense forces, who documents his work as a rescuer on social media. The reality on the ground is much worse than what I post. There are dead bodies everywhere in the streets. People are prisoners, no one knows where to go. »
It has been almost ten days since the northern Gaza Strip has been under fire in an operation of unprecedented intensity by the Israeli army. After asserting that “Hamas was rebuilding its operational capabilities in the Jabaliya camp”the army ordered the 60,000 inhabitants of Beit Hanoun, Beit Lahiya and Jabaliya to evacuate to the already overcrowded humanitarian zone of Al-Mawasi, before encircling the North.
“No one dares to leave their homes anymore”
Ismaïl, a resident of Jabaliya moved to Beit Lahiya, has, like many, decided to stay. “We’ve lived through the horror of war and now we’re letting them win by forcing us to leave? Of course not! We will never allow them to steal the North! “, protests this 33-year-old former teacher.
Trapped, he describes a daily life made up of explosions, gunshots and incessant shelling: “People are being killed while they are in their homes. At the slightest movement, the quadcopters spot you and shoot you down. The army also uses suicide robot tanks which explode in the middle of neighborhoods, causing buildings to collapse. The evacuation routes are bombed… No one dares to leave their homes anymore. »
Due to a lack of journalists, both Gazan and international, the images arriving from northern Gaza are rare. Some residents share their daily lives on social networks, to alert people to the “genocide” that they say they live: “No vegetables, no meat, no fruits, and even some legumes are exhausted, reports on X Ezzideen Shehab, doctor in Jabaliya. The Internet is cut in most areas, the telecommunications network is extremely poor, the only bakery that supplied the camp has been burned and water wells are systematically targeted. »
“More than 300 seriously ill patients trapped”
Besieged, the northern Gaza Strip has received neither food nor medical aid since the beginning of the month. All three hospitals in the area were ordered to evacuate critically ill patients and healthcare workers, but the lack of safe evacuation routes made the process impossible.
“More than 300 seriously ill patients are trapped in hospitals, which are beginning to run out of fuel and medical supplies, as the number of injured rises,” alerts Fikr Shalltoot, director of Medical Aid for Palestinians in Gaza. The NGO wants to warn against “the erasure of the Palestinian presence” underway in the north of the enclave: “The world must act before Gaza is completely razed. »
In the same movement, Israeli human rights NGOs denounced “alarming signals” indicating “the discreet implementation of the “generals’ plan””. This military project, defended before the war cabinet by retired generals, intends to eradicate Hamas, pushed to “surrender or starve”with disregard for the lives of civilians who would have remained in the North: “The entire territory of the northern Gaza Strip will become military territory, and this military territory, as far as we are concerned, will not receive any aid,” explains Giora Eiland, retired major general of the Israeli army, in a video.
“If the continuation of the wait-and-see attitude of the States allows Israel to liquidate northern Gaza, they will be complicit,” protest Israeli NGOs in a press release. Threatening to limit its arms supply, the United States gave Israel 30 days to resolve the humanitarian crisis.
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