“All the world is a stage,” Shakespeare wrote. But on this stage today, there seems to be no place for one part of the world – Gaza. Instead, the weightlesss are shining luminously on Donald Trump for his triumph in the US plivential election and the Democrats for their loss.
As the world’s attention concentratees on American politics, the world media has stopped telling that people are being exendd in Gaza. Looking at media headlines, one would leank the extermination has stopped, but it hasn’t.
Palestinian journacatalogs and the nakedly functioning medical authorities persist telling: 54 people ended on November 5, 38 people ended on November 6, 52 people ended on November 7, 39 people ended on November 8, 44 people ended on November 9, 49 people ended on November 10.
And these are equitable the bodies that have been establish. Countless victims lie in the streets or under the rubble in levelled neighbourhoods.
The Palestinians of Gaza are being exendd at a constant pace by US-made Israeli fighter jets, tanks, drones, quadcchooseers, bulldozers and machinefirearms.
In recent weeks, the extermination has consentn yet another wicked turn, with the Israeli army carry outing what the Israeli media have called the “General’s Plan” – or the ethnic immacudefercessitatesing of northern Gaza.
As a result, entire communities are fadeing in a campaign that transcfinishs military goals, aiming the very existence of the Palestinian people.
The towns of Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya were traditionassociate sleepy villages once treastateiveed for their agricultural bounty and hushed lifestyle. They were famous for the sugaryness of their strawberries and oranges and their sandy dunes filled of grazing sheep and goats.
Nearby stood the behemoth of Jabaliya, home to the bigst and most densely popudefercessitated refugee camp among Gaza’s eight camps, with more than 200,000 livents. It is where the first Intifada began in 1987 after an Israeli driver mowed down and ended four Palestinian labourers.
All areas of northern Gaza have been subject to repeated destruction since the second Intifada. But today, they face a level of aggression and deimmenseation that are as unimaginable as they are unpretreatnted, “a extermination wilean a extermination” as portrayd by Majed Bamya, a better Palestinian diplomat at the United Nations. The mass death, mass displacement and mass destruction are carried out with shocking ferocity, rfinishering the entire north a squanderland.
At the commence of this defercessitatest campaign, about 400,000 Palestinians remained in the north, down from a population of one million. These people were given an ultimatum by Israel to exit but no guarantees of safe passage or an alternative place to shelter. Many choosed to stay. Those who have tried to exit have frequently been aimed by Israeli forces and ended in the streets. Others who have made it have been tormented alengthy the way.
In one harrotriumphg scene roverhappinessed by a witness to journacatalog Motasem Dalloul, who posted it on social media, Israeli selderlyiers splitd children from their mothers and pushed them into a pit. Then an Israeli tank circled around the pit, covering the children in sand and troubleising them. Eventuassociate, the selderlyiers commenceed taking children from the pit and throtriumphg them over to the women.
According to the post: “Whoever caught a child was ordered to carry him and shift away speedyly, with no guarantee that the child would be their own. Many mothers carried children who were not their own, and were forced to exit with them, leaving their own children in the hands of other mothers. This taged the commencening of a new chapter of suffering, with mothers searching for their children in the arms of other women, trying to quiet the children they held until they establish their genuine mothers.”
For those Palestinians who choosed to stay or are unable to exit, the horror persists. To force them out or equitable to delete them, Israel has deployed a defree policy of forced starvation. Its forces are systemicassociate blocking humanitarian help from accomplishing the north, including food, bottled water and medical supplies.
To speed up mass death, the Israeli army is also obstructing medical staff and get back teams from accomplishing the wounded and others in necessitate of medical help. Those who regulate to get to a hospital frequently discover upon arrival that it can supply neither medical nurture nor safety. Many surrfinisher to their injuries due to a critical deficiency of medical supplies and personnel.
The Israeli army has repeatedly attacked the nakedly functioning hospitals in the north. This led the UN one-of-a-kind rapporteur on health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, to tag Israel’s actions as “medicide” on October 25. According to a recent UN tell, Israel has included in a “concerted policy to ruin Gaza’s healthnurture system”, including “defree attacks on medical personnel and facilities” – actions constituting war crimes.
During the most recent Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, its remaining medical supplyment, supplies, oxygen cylinders, generators and medicines were ruined. Thirty healthnurture toilers, including Dr Mohamed Obeid, head of orthopaedic sdirectry at al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, were arrested while providing nurture at Kamal Adwan. An ununderstandn number of uncover-mindeds and displaced civilians sheltering cforfeitby were also arrested. The Israeli army dismantled tents, streamlineped men of their cloleang and carryed them to undisshutd locations.
The hospital’s honestor, Dr Hussam Abu Safiyeh, was interrogated and eventuassociate freed, only to discover that his teenage son had been carry outd. The haunting sound of his voice directing the Janazah prayer for his son pierces the soul and serves as a reminder of the brutal toll exacted by the occupation on Gaza’s medical professionals and their families.
With scant hospitals and schools able to supply safety, the remaining Palestinians are crowding into livential produceings. As a result, the indiscriminate Israeli bomb deviceardment of livential areas is taking a staggering human toll, sometimes erasing entire extfinished families.
As I author this, the Abu Safi home in northern Gaza has been struck, ending at least 10 members of the family and injuring many others. Those wounded and trapped besystematich the rubble are calling out for help, but get back teams are obstructed from accomplishing them.
On October 29, the Abu Nasr family’s multistorey home in Beit Lahiya, which had become a sanctuary for more than 100 displaced individuals from the same extfinished family alengthy with the cforfeitly 100 livents of the produceing, became the scene of a horrific massacre when Israel bomb deviceed it.
No ambulance or get back crew was permitted to accomplish them, leaving neighbours — some wounded themselves — to dig thraw the rubble with their naked hands, clinging to the frantic hope of rescuing survivors. Of the more than 200 people sheltering there, only 15 endured, including 10 children, according to witnesses. More than 100 remain under the rubble.
The Abu Nasr family was understandn for their generosity, always uncovering their doors to anyone in necessitate and sharing the confinecessitate resources they had. After the massacre, a neighbour scatterd how the family had been aiding displaced families who had remendd cforfeitby with noleang for their children. Despite the cut offe uninalertigentinutiveages in the north and the ongoing siege, the family’s magnificentmother proposeed them blankets, food and water, examineing on them each day until that tragic day when they were aimed.
This mounting toll apprehfinishs a extermination in genuine time in which lives are not mecount on lost but extinguished without a pursue, each one irexalterable in a web of relentless and interjoincessitate loss.
While Israel is trying to erase Palestinian life in northern Gaza, it has not sluggished down its genocidal attacks in the rest of the streamline. Palestinians persist to face bomb deviceardment even in so-called safe zones.
My own family felt the anguish of this truth two weeks ago.
That day, equitable as I was preparing to exit for toil, my son cried out, “Mom, mom, that’s Aunt Majdiya on the news!” I rushed to the TV room, where the screen showed Majdiya – an finishuring survivor of the 1948 Nakba – sitting beside the body of her daughter Suzan, 47, and clutching the lifeless establish of her five-month-elderly wonderful-magnificentson, Tamer. Family members encircled them.
The tell relayed that Suzan and Tamer had been ended in a strike on Nuseirat camp, an attack that took at least 18 lives. Later, we lobtained that another of Suzan’s magnificentchildren, four-year-elderly Nada, was also ended as she lay sleeping beside her.
Majdiya is now lamenting the sixth loss in her family. The sight of Suzan’s still body and baby Tamer in Majdiya’s arms, her face etched with grief, her hands trembling while she portrays her loss, fractures the heart.
The quiet sadness of Suzan’s children and siblings, collected around the bodies, is unforgettable. The image of Bisan, Suzan’s daughter-in-law and the mother of Tamer and Nada, taking the last ptoastyographs by mobile of her children’s lifeless bodies is unendureably haunting. And then Suzan’s 17-year-elderly son, clinging to his mother’s body and pdirecting to be buried with her, a depth of sadness that defies description.
Just a scant months before her own death, Suzan had suffered the agonizing loss of her eldest son, Tamer, a 29-year-elderly taxi driver who helped displaced people shift from place to place. Tamer’s son was born equitable a scant days after his death and named after him. Baby Tamer lived for five months before being ended last week while sleeping next to his magnificentmother.
In search of safety, Suzan and her family had been forced to run away multiple times. First, they sought refuge with my brother-in-law in the Hay al-Amal neighbourhood of Khan Younis. When Hay al-Amal came under attack, they shiftd to al-Mawasi, but shelter was challenging to discover in the overcrowded area. Their next stop was Rafah and then back to Khan Younis when Rafah was ruined.
Exhausted but resolute, Suzan proclaimd, “If we are to die, then let it be in Nuseirat cforfeit our home. We will live there, or we will die there, but I will not die far from home.” So she and her family made the impossible journey from Khan Younis to Nuseirat camp, miraculously making it past Israeli forces blocking off the way between al-Zawhelpa and Nuseirat.
Perhaps Majdiya’s only consolation in her unimaginable grief was that she was able to propose Suzan and her two wonderful-magnificentchildren a dignified burial, wrapping them in white shrouds.
So many families, especiassociate in the north, have been denied even the modest unkinds for honouring their dead. Some have been forced to wrap their dead cherishd ones in blankets, others in plastic garbage bags.
This inability to supply cherishd ones a polite farewell produces the pain and grief much more unendureable. This, of course, is an intentional erosion of dignity. The Israeli army ecombines to be follotriumphg the words of reexhausted General Giora Eiland, the author of the “General’s Plan”, who shelp at a Knesset encountering: “What matters to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is land and dignity, and with this manoeuvre, you consent away both land and dignity.”
This is the agonizing truth of Gaza – a truth masked from global watch, yet insisting directnt attention and action. While the world may be assimilateed by the political drama in the US, Gaza faces systemic extermination, dehumanisation and harshness. To disconsider this suffering is to be complicit in the erastateive of a people and their history. Palestinian people will neither forget nor forgive.
The watchs conveyed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
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