Nora Barrows-Friedman
The Electronic Intifada / October 9, 2024
In Gaza this week, Israel carried out a series of massacres in the north and central areas, targeting school shelters and the tents of displaced people.
In the northern Gaza Strip, Israeli forces have imposed a siege on the Jabaliya refugee camp for the last four days, issuing forced evacuation orders and surrounding the camp with tanks and armed quadcopters.
On Wednesday, at least 10 Palestinians were killed when Israeli forces bombed the tents of displaced people in Jabaliya.
Al-Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum stated on Tuesday that the Israeli army is “systematically working to empty northern Gaza.”
Journalist Hossam Shabat reported that when people have tried to leave Jabaliya, they have been shot at by Israeli snipers.
Mahmoud Shalha, reporting from Jabaliya on Tuesday, filmed this footage of a quadcopter shooting inside Jabaliya camp.
The Israeli army ordered the evacuation of the Al-Awda Hospital, the Indonesian Hospital and Kamal Adwan Hospital, some of the only medical facilities partially functioning in northern Gaza.
Abed Zwidie, another journalist in the north, reported from the Kamal Adwan hospital on Tuesday that the army was besieging the medical facility, which has already been overwhelmed with the dead and injured from recent Israeli attacks.
Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, Director of Kamal Adwan Hospital, stated that his staff would defy the evacuation orders.
He told Al Jazeera, “We have babies and newborns that are in the ICU. Even if we can evacuate a few patients, we cannot leave the hospital because there is no other hospital that is providing services and treatment to children, except Kamal Adwan hospital.”
A doctor at the Indonesian Hospital stated on Wednesday morning that “for the past two days, the road to the hospital has been blocked, and we haven’t been able to reach it. Today, the hospital was threatened with evacuation, or it will be bombed. Many of my fellow doctors are trapped inside, unable to leave as quadcopter drones target any movement around the hospital.”
More than 40 Palestinians were killed on Tuesday alone, according to Palestinian medical sources.
Israel attacked Gaza City on Monday, targeting residential buildings, journalist Ibrahim al-Khalili reported.
Central Gaza attacked
On Monday, Israeli forces attacked the tents of displaced people in al-Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza.
انتشال جثامين شهداء جراء استهداف خيام النازحين غرب مخيم البريج وسط قطاع غزة pic.twitter.com/nYgp1WZYmj
— أنس الشريف Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0) October 7, 2024
Areas in central Gaza were attacked numerous times this past week, including by consecutive missile strikes early Sunday morning in Deir al-Balah on the al-Aqsa Martyrs Mosque and the Ibn Rushid school that has been turned into a shelter for thousands of displaced Palestinians.
At least 26 people were killed in the two attacks, and more than 90 injured.
In Rafah on Tuesday, eight Palestinians were killed when an Israeli drone bombed people gathered to collect water at a filling station, according to the Palestinian news agency WAFA.
Journalists killed, shot
Israel killed two journalists over the last four days, bringing the number of assassinated reporters and media workers to at least 175 since October 2023.
Hasan Hamad was a 19-year-old journalist who worked with Al Jazeera and other media outlets. He was killed in an Israeli airstrike on his home in northern Gaza’s Jabaliya refugee camp on Sunday, days after he was warned by an Israeli officer to stop filming in Gaza, according to Al-Jazeera.
Oh God, no. Say his name: Hassan Hamad. Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, the US and Israel murdered him, about the 176th journalist murdered in this nightmare. He spent his last night on earth with his dear friend Anas Al-Sharif documenting the genocide. Then Israel killed him, too!!! pic.twitter.com/ep9peCUZKq
I just saw my friend and colleague Hassan Hamad an hour ago Israeli occupation forces have just killed him, and what remains of his body is in pieces in a plastic bag. Why do I have to see my friends in plastic bags? Why is this world so cruel to us?
— حسام شبات (@HossamShabat) October 6, 2024
His friends and colleagues carried his body parts in plastic bags, along with his flak jacket with PRESS emblazoned across it.
On Wednesday, Israel targeted a group of journalists covering the ongoing siege of Jabaliya camp.
#Breaking The martyrdom of cameraman Mohammad Al-Tanani from Al-Aqsa TV, and the injury of correspondent Tamer Labad in an Israeli airstrike targeting the Abu Shrekh area, west of Jabalia Camp, in northern Gaza Strip. pic.twitter.com/ZiH1A9d7hp
— أنس الشريف Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0) October 9, 2024
The doctor informed me a short while ago that my dear friend and colleague, Fadi Al-Wahidi, an Al Jazeera cameraman, is currently in critical condition after being shot by Israeli forces while covering the siege of Jabalia camp in northern Gaza.
Despite wearing a press vest, Fadi… pic.twitter.com/IXCyIoJB4m
— أنس الشريف Anas Al-Sharif (@AnasAlSharif0) October 9, 2024
Reporter Anas al-Sharif stated that Al-Aqsa TV cameraman Mohammad al-Tanani was killed, and correspondent Tamer Labad was injured. Al Jazeera cameraman Fadi al-Wahidi was shot in the neck and injured as well.
One year of “prominent crimes”
The Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor issued a report this week documenting “the most prominent crimes committed over the past 12 months.”
Since Israel’s genocide began a year ago, the group states, an estimated 10 percent of Gaza’s population has been killed, injured, reported missing, or detained as a result of Israeli military assaults.
The Israeli army employs explicit methods designed to inflict severe physical and psychological trauma on the population, Euro-Med explains.
“These include launching thousands of systematic military assaults on civilians, dramatically increasing deaths among people of reproductive age, separating families, targeting the healthcare system, and imposing brutal living conditions marked by starvation and malnutrition,” the group adds.
“The obstruction of humanitarian aid further exacerbates these atrocities, creating life-threatening situations for thousands.”
The international aid organization Oxfam stated this week that more women and children have been killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the past year than the equivalent period of any other conflict over the past two decades.
Records, which the group says are not comprehensive, show that Israeli explosive weapons hit on average, homes every four hours, tents and temporary shelters every 17 hours, schools and hospitals every four days, and aid distribution points and warehouses every 15 days.
At the same time, Euro-Med Monitor says that Israeli forces have worked to eliminate almost 80 percent of the agricultural land in the Gaza Strip from use by Palestinians.
The group says that Israel has done this “either by isolating it in preparation for its forcible annexation to the so-called ‘buffer zone’ or by bulldozing or destroying it by other means, such as bombardment – all of which are in violation of international law.”
According to the Euro-Med Monitor field team, Israeli forces stormed the area of Al-Shimaa in Beit Lahia, northern Gaza, just two weeks ago.
“Accompanied by military bulldozers, the forces began their bulldozing operations, destroying more than 500 dunams [124 acres] of newly replanted agricultural land, which was supposed to sustain the needs of the people living in northern Gaza, who are subject to an arbitrary siege and systematic starvation by Israel,” the group states.
Meanwhile, the Palestinian health ministry in Gaza reported this week that around 1,000 health workers have been killed since last October, and only half of Gaza’s hospitals are partially functional.
The World Health Organization estimates that since October 2023, there have been at least 516 attacks on healthcare in Gaza.
Israel has also prevented essential medications and medical supplies from entering Gaza, depleting stockpiles.
Healthcare Workers Watch issued a report this week showing that 105 senior physicians were killed or detained by the Israeli military over the last 12 months, constituting 23 percent of Gaza’s most experienced physicians.
The Electronic Intifada published a feature this week written by Rasha Abou Jalal, who describes how her brother-in-law, Yazan Younis, has tried to access basic medical care as the Israelis continue to decimate Gaza’s health infrastructure.
“There are half a million scheduled surgeries on the waiting list in Gaza hospitals,” Dr. Abdul Latif al-Hajj, of the health ministry, told Abou Jalal.
Nora Barrows-Friedman is a staff writer and associate editor at The Electronic Intifada, and is the author of In Our Power: US Students Organize for Justice in Palestine (Just World Books
