Israel’s massacre of civilians rage on in Gaza
By Arafat Abu Zaid
Lecturer in international relations
The Battle of Al-Aqsa is in its second week, and the scene continues to escalate in Palestinian territories, especially in the Gaza Strip. Hardly a minute goes by without hearing the sounds of shells targeting the homes of the innocent, leading to their destruction over the heads of women and children. This is in the context of Israel’s scorched earth policy, given its utter security failure in reaching the leadership and pillars of the resistance, leading to the complete destruction of entire neighborhoods like Al-Karama, Al-Shuja’iya, Jabaliya, and Sheikh Radwan. In addition, they have been using a policy of displacement, demanding that the residents of Gaza City and its northern areas head south towards the Rafah and Khan Younis governorates to be closer to Egypt, to carry out a citizen displacement plan.
The new dangerous development is the occupiers’ threat to central hospitals with bombardment and their demand for evacuation. These hospitals serve hundreds of thousands of citizens. They have been targeted with internationally banned incendiary phosphorus bombs, within the framework of the collective punishment policy used by the regime against the citizens of Gaza.
Since the first day of their aggression on the Gaza Strip, the occupiers have threatened a ground invasion. It is worth noting that the occupiers’ death toll has exceeded 1,400, while the number of Gaza Strip martyrs has reached over 2,700, with a significant number of martyrs and wounded still trapped under the rubble. Civil defense forces are unable to extract them due to the lack of equipment capable of doing so, especially since the Gaza Strip has suffered from a suffocating blockade that has prevented the entry of many devices and equipment of this kind for 16 years.
One of the scenes that deeply affected me occurred three days ago when the regime’s aircraft carried out continuous, brutal, and savage bombardments in the area where I reside. One of the strikes hit a residential apartment adjacent to mine, resulting in the tragic death of a ten-day-old infant along with her mother and two others. The force of the explosion and the shelling caused shrapnel and glass to scatter inside my home, leading to the injury of my three-year-old daughter as she fled from the sounds of the intense bombardment and explosions. She fell down the stairs during her escape, suffering injuries and a broken arm. Therefore, these are the targets that the leaders of the Israeli regime boast of targeting in Gaza. The Israeli military stated in a press release that on that night, 750 targets belonging to the resistance were hit. Does targeting children, killing them, and attempting to spread terror in their hearts represent the goals of the regime’s military? The Zionist Defense Minister explicitly stated that those in Gaza are subhuman and will be treated as such. That’s why the occupation does not hesitate to kill children and women in Gaza, cut off water and electricity, and prevent the delivery of food and medical aid to Gaza.
It can be said that we are still in the early stages of an aggression that appears to be intensifying over time to target both human lives and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip, in an attempt to eliminate any hope of living in Gaza and render it uninhabitable.