Gaza City-Three generations of the Al-Khour family were destroyed when Israel bombed their family home in the Al-Sabra district in the center of Gaza at dawn on April 26. The family’s elderly patriarch, Talal al-Khour, his wives, his daughters, his sons and his grandchildren were all killed in the attack. A total of twenty -two people – including twelve children – made it possible to explode them and bury under the rubble.
“The air strike occurred in Dawn while we fall asleep. Suddenly, we woke up to an explosion that looked like an earthquake. We rushed into the street and found that the five-story house in the Al-Khour family had turned into a bunch of rubble,” the site told Drop. “As soon as the strike dust emerged, the neighbors started trying to save family members. The recovery operation continued for eight consecutive hours. We saw bodies everywhere. There were headless children.”
With the help of residents of the region, the civil defense teams were able to recover fifteen of the bodies, which were then buried together in a mass tomb. The remaining bodies remain trapped under the debris. The emergency rescue teams were forced to dig through the wreckage with bare hands following Israel denying the entrance to the equipment to Gaza and deliberately targeting the small machine available, according to the civil defense spokesman Mahmoud Bassal.
“We could hear the cries of the wounded under the rubble, but we were helpless to reach them. Over time, the cries faded, and we no longer knew if they were still alive or had been killed,” said Bassal to Drop site. “Many lives could have been saved, but the blockade in progress and the denial of essential tools have eliminated the possible chances of rescue.”
Since Israel resumed its campaign of bombing in land burned on March 18, Gaza has been transformed into a death desert, in which the rubble and ruin form the backdrop for a mass murder campaign. The Israeli army has carried out several air strikes and bombing through the enclave daily, beating houses, travel camps, cafes, hospitals, charity kitchens, “humanitarian zones” and other civil sites.
The attack scale is almost impossible to follow. Only Wednesday, on Wednesday, three residential buildings of the Nuseirat refugee camp were bombed; One of the strikes killed six family members, including three brothers and sisters, all children. In a neighboring building, eight people in a single house were killed. In Jabaliya, at least three people from the same family, including two young girls, were killed in an Israeli artillery fire. On the coast, west of Gaza City, a fisherman was killed while pulling his boat on the ground. In the west of Khan Younis, a one -night drone strike on a tent killed six people, including children. This is not a complete list and does not even cover a period of 24 hours.
During two days last week, the Israeli army also targeted and bombed over 30 bulldozers and other heavy machines. Some of them had been given during the “ceasefire” to erase the rubble, repair critical infrastructure and save people after the air strikes, according to the United Nations Bureau for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
The scenes emerging from everywhere Gaza, from Rafah to the south at Beit Hanoun in the north, are astounding in their horror. The children have moved away on the roofs or rolling their bikes; Corpses scattered in a cafe, some are still seated, sprawled in their chairs; Corpses wrapped in white body bags lined up next to each other; Suicide drones crash into tents housing sleeping families; Hleas upon parents and injured children dispersed in the streets.
“The massacres do not stop. We are slaughtered from the vein to the vein,” said Al Jazeera correspondent, Anas Al-Sharif, in an article on social networks.
At least 2,300 Palestinians have been killed in only the past six weeks – the equivalent of more than fifty people killed every day. More than 740 of the dead are children, said at Zaher al-Wahidi, director of the information unit of the Ministry of Health, in Gaza, Zaher al-Wahidi. Since the start of the war, more than 2,180 families have been entirely wiped out – with all members killed – while more than 5,070 families have lost all members, with the exception of a surviving individual, according to the government’s media office.
The relentless assault comes when Israel has imposed a forced famine policy on the two million residents of Gaza, completely sealing Gaza and denying the entry of all foods, fuel, medication and other humanitarian goods since March 2 – by the longest blocking since the start of the war. According to a statement, more than 65,000 children in Gaza were hospitalized for severe malnutrition.
Israel clearly indicated that the intensification of the military assault and the current blockade are explicitly aimed at putting Hamas on knees. Negotiations for a ceasefire seem to be in an impasse with Israel by removing the crucial elements of the original three-phase agreement signed by Hamas and Israel in January, and which now pushes Hamas to put back, formally disarm and officially exile its leadership as a condition for ending the genocide.
The Israeli Defense Minister reiterated that the refusal of food, medicine and other aid is used to collectively punish Palestinians from Gaza. “No humanitarian aid is about to enter Gaza,” said Israel Katz, announcing that “preventing humanitarian aid from entering Gaza is one of the main pressure levers”.
The use of famine as a weapon of war had a devastating effect. Last week, the UN warned that Gaza “is now probably faced with the worst humanitarian crisis for 18 months since climbing hostilities in October 2023.”
The World Food Program recently announced that it had no food. “The situation is at a breakdown,” the organization said in a statement. Food prices increased by 1,400%. Without flour or fuel supply, Gaza bakeries have stopped working and remaining food stocks are quickly exhausted. The available flour is often infested with insects. Families are increasingly using the mixture of crushed macaroni with flour to make bread and just allocating a piece of bread per family member per day.
With shortages of cooking gas and firewood, families are forced to burn plastic and other waste to cook the small foods they have. People are looking for wild plants and eat sea turtles that have been washed on the ground in order to survive. The UN last week said that it has identified 3,700 children with acute malnutrition in March, now 80% compared to the previous month. In total, fifty-three children have died of malnutrition since the start of the war.
The chiefs of twelve major aid organizations published a joint declaration last week warning that “famine is not only a risk, but which probably takes place quickly in almost all parties of Gaza”, and characterizing the situation in Gaza “one of the worst humanitarian failures of our generation”.
In recent weeks, the Israeli army has bombed the Al-Ahli hospital and the pediatric hospital in Al Durrah, both in Gaza City; Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and Kowitit Field Hospital in Mawasi; and massacred fifteen emergencies and first speakers. Hospitals that are still standing barely work, with serious shortages of medicine, equipment and doctors.
Meanwhile, the Israeli army continues to press the Palestinians on small plots of land in Gaza. About 70% Gaza has been designated as “without Go” areas or placed under travel commands. In the past six weeks, around 420,000 Palestinians have been moved, without any safe place.
“This is design deprivation,” said OCHA’s office chief Jonathan Whittall, in a press release. “The land is annexed to the north, from the east, from the south of the strip while the forces advance … Gaza is hungry, it is bombed, it is strangled. It looks like the deliberate dismantling of Palestinian life.”
