Nora Barrows-Friedman
The Electronic Intifada / August 29, 2024
Israel is tightening the noose around Palestinians by forcibly transferring them into an increasingly narrow area no more than 10 percent of the Gaza Strip.
Even before the war, the Gaza Strip was one of the most densely populated places in the world, with 2.3 million Palestinians – two-thirds of them refugees from areas conquered by Zionist forces in 1948 – concentrated in 141 square miles.
Since October, two percent of Gaza’s population has been killed, and many more injured or gone missing. But nearly everyone has been displaced, many multiple times.
The Government Media Office in Gaza published a timeline demonstrating how Israeli evacuation orders beginning in November have forced Palestinians from the north of the territory to the south under the threat of death, pushing much of the population to a so-called humanitarian zone along the coast of southern Gaza.
Since 16 August, the Israeli army has issued at least five evacuation orders directing Palestinians in central Gaza, primarily in the town of Deir al-Balah, to flee to an ever-shrinking area of the Gaza Strip.
On 25 August, patients, staff and displaced families inside and around Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah packed up what they could and fled.
Dr. Mohammad al-Najjar, a doctor in the intensive care unit at the hospital, posted a photo of himself in the ICU on Sunday, saying that this was the last photo of the unit, and that patients will inevitably die as there are no doctors or nurses.
He added “Please anyone who can see this post do anything to stop this genocide. I will not leave the hospital.”
Physicians caring for premature newborn babies in the hospital had to delicately evacuate them to nearby medical facilities that have been bombed, besieged and attacked by Israeli forces over the last 10 months, and rebuilt to be at least partially functional, by Palestinians.
The Palestinian health ministry in Gaza stated on Monday that despite the panic that Israel’s order caused among patients who were fearful that Israel would repeat the procedure of storming and attacking Al-Aqsa Hospital as it has done to every other hospital in Gaza, the ministry would continue to operate.
The ministry added that there were still approximately 100 patients inside the hospital, seven of whom were in intensive care.
Three leading Palestinian rights groups – Al-Haq, Al-Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights – stated on Tuesday that along with the five displacement orders over the last two weeks in central Gaza, Israel has issued nine other orders “targeting various areas of Khan Younis and an additional four orders for northern Gaza.”
Samir Zaqout, Al-Mezan’s deputy director, who is displaced in central Gaza, stated: “Israel’s continued cycle of forced displacement has left the people of Gaza with nowhere to go. The so-called ‘safe humanitarian area’, which is neither safe nor humanitarian, covers only about 11 percent of Gaza.”
Zaqout added: “There is no space left for new tents, and some people have been displaced up to 15 times. Additionally, there is no transportation available to move around. People are in a state of panic and fear, unsure of what to do or where to go. We are all waiting for the next displacement order, wondering when it will come and where people will be forced to go next.”
The rights groups say that the recent displacement orders in and around Deir al-Balah are having a devastating impact on humanitarian operations on the ground.
Following the Israeli displacement order affecting Rafah in May, the groups add, most United Nations agencies and international non-governmental organizations relocated their operational centers and staff to Deir al-Balah.
Consequently, the UN and various international organizations were forced to vacate their operational centers in Deir al-Balah, significantly disrupting their ability to provide essential support and services on the ground.
The UN announced on Monday that it was being forced to halt all of its humanitarian aid operations in Gaza because of the displacement orders.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, a senior UN official told the Reuters news agency that their team was “unable to deliver today with the conditions that we’re in. We’re not leaving [Gaza] because the people need us there. We’re trying to balance the need of the population with the need for safety and security of the UN personnel. Where do we move now?”
The official told Reuters that UN staff had to be moved so quickly that equipment was left behind.
This comes as the UN prepares to vaccinate 640,000 Palestinian children against the polio virus, which has already paralyzed a 10-month-old baby, the first case in 25 years.
The aforementioned Palestinian human rights groups say that more than one million children are at risk of contracting polio.
“The delay in the vaccination campaign due to Israel’s displacement orders highlights a trend of weaponizing previously eradicated, highly infectious diseases as a tool of genocide,” the groups add.
“This strategy deliberately uses such diseases to inflict permanent disability or death on Palestinian residents of Gaza.”
Attacks throughout Gaza
Meanwhile, Israeli forces attacked areas across the Gaza Strip this past week, including in Gaza City in the north, Deir al-Balah, Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camp in the center, and Al-Mawasi and Khan Younis in the south.
Early Wednesday morning, Israeli forces also attacked the Jabaliya refugee camp in the north, targeting homes while people were sleeping. Images and video on social media show children once again torn to shreds.
During and since Sunday’s displacement orders on Deir al-Balah, Israeli airstrikes, tanks and armed drones have continuously attacked people in the city.
Our contributor Abubaker Abed said on Tuesday that along with airstrikes, Israeli tanks and bulldozers have been destroying and demolishing homes in the eastern part of the city for days.
Due to the ongoing military operations, about 85 percent of the water wells in Deir al-Balah are non-functional, according to the UN, making it harder for people to meet their basic needs.
Journalists killed
Israel has killed at least three more journalists this week in Gaza. The Gaza government media office stated on Tuesday that reporter Ali Nayef Taima was killed on Tuesday in an airstrike on Al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis.
Reporter Hussam al Dabakah was killed last Thursday, along with his wife and children, when Israel bombed their home in the Maghazi refugee camp.
Early Wednesday morning, Israel killed journalist Mohammed Abd Rabbo in a bombing of a residential building in Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip.
This comes on the heels of two journalists who were killed in Israeli attacks last week.
Photographer and journalist Hamza Abdul Rahman Murtaja was killed in an airstrike on the Mustafa Hafez school in Gaza City on 20 August.
At least 12 Palestinians were killed in that attack.
Hamza was the brother of Yaser Murtaja, the videographer and reporter who was executed by an Israeli sniper during the Great March of Return in 2018.
Journalist Ibrahim Marwan Muharab was killed on 18 August when Israeli forces fired at a group of journalists gathered in Hamad City in Khan Younis. Muharab worked for several international media outlets.
In that same attack, Israeli forces shot journalist Salma Al-Qaddoumi. She was injured, but survived.
More than 170 Palestinian journalists have been killed by Israel since October.
Systematic torture of healthcare workers
Human Rights Watch published a report this week documenting the systematic torture and abuse of Palestinian healthcare workers in Gaza since October.
Released doctors, nurses and paramedics described to Human Rights Watch “their mistreatment in Israeli custody, including humiliation, beatings, forced stress positions, prolonged cuffing and blindfolding, and denial of medical care. They also reported torture, including rape and sexual abuse by Israeli forces, denial of medical care, and poor detention conditions for the general detainee population.”
After being taken from Gaza, the health workers told the group “that they were then deported to detention facilities in Israel, including the Sde Teiman military base in the Negev desert and Ashkelon prison, or, forcibly transferred to the Anatot military base near East Jerusalem and the Ofer detention facility, in the occupied West Bank.”
“All said that they were stripped, beaten, and blindfolded and handcuffed, for many weeks on end, and pressured to confess to being members of the Hamas movement with various threats of indefinite detention, rape, and killing their families in Gaza,” Human Rights Watch added.
One paramedic said that when soldiers removed his blindfold at the Sde Teiman facility, “he saw he was in a large building ‘like a warehouse,’ with chains hanging from the ceiling. Dozens of detainees in diapers were suspended from the ceiling, with the chains attached to their square metal handcuffs.”
The paramedic stated that Israeli personnel at the facility “then suspended him from a chain, so his feet were not touching the ground, dressed him in a garment and a headband that were attached to wires, and shocked him with electricity.”
Jewish settler pogroms, military invasions in West Bank
Turning to the occupied West Bank, Israeli settlers killed 37-year-old Khalil Salem Ziyada and injured at least six other Palestinians during a pogrom targeting the village of Wadi Rehal near Bethlehem on Monday night.
It was one of several settler pogroms this week. The WAFA news agency reported that Israeli settlers assaulted Palestinian farmers in Al-Maniya village, also near Bethlehem, on Tuesday.
The head of the village council said that approximately 150 armed Israeli settlers attacked the farmers and opened fire on them.
Later on in the evening, a Palestinian was injured in an attack by Israeli settlers south of Nablus. WAFA news agency says that settlers pelted Palestinian cars with stones close to a checkpoint, hitting a man in the head.
On Monday, Israeli forces, using an armed drone, struck a house and killed five Palestinians, including two children, in the Nur Shams refugee camp near Tulkarm.
And in the pre-dawn hours on Wednesday, the Israeli army launched a wide-scale military offensive across the northern West Bank, targeting areas of resistance in Jenin, Tubas, and Tulkarm.
As of this report, at least 10 Palestinians have been reported killed since the raids began.
WAFA news agency reported that Palestinian fighters were assassinated in Jenin, and two others were killed and several others were injured following a drone strike by Israeli occupation forces on the Al-Faraa refugee camp, south of Tubas. Israeli forces have been preventing ambulances from accessing wounded people and obstructing rescue operations.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated that Israeli forces also detained medical teams in al-Faraa camp and prevented them from using communication devices.
Israeli soldiers also fired shots inside the medical point and assaulted the director of the Tubas Emergency center, the medical group stated.
And in Jenin, the Jenin Governmental Hospital was blocked by Israeli soldiers, preventing medical teams and ambulances from entering and/or leaving the hospital.
The Palestinian rights groups Al-Haq, Al-Mezan and the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights stated on Wednesday that the Israeli military’s attacks on Jenin, Tubas and Tulkarem have involved “closing off the cities’ entrances, the widespread destruction of infrastructure through the use of military bulldozers.”
In addition, the groups say, “a large number of Israeli soldiers carried out raids and searches of several homes in various areas, including the Jenin Refugee Camp, with Israeli snipers stationed on top of several buildings. Overall, movement in Jenin and its refugee camp has come to a complete halt, with intense surveillance aircraft hovering overhead.”
Throngs of Israeli soldiers “have been reported in the area of the evacuated settlements east of Jenin, which appear to be used by the [Israeli army] as a military base,” the rights groups report.
They warn “of the dangerous consequences should the [Israeli army] proceed with the threatened attack on Jenin Governmental Hospital – the only governmental hospital and largest hospital in the entire Jenin Governorate, with around 220 beds, and the closest facility to Jenin Refugee Camp, which operates consistently at full capacity, serving a high volume of patients and visitors.”
Highlighting resilience
Finally, we wanted to bring you some images and videos from journalists and others in Gaza that highlight the resilience, joy and determination of the Palestinian people.
Journalist Hossam Shabat, who is still reporting from the north of Gaza, posted this video of an initiative he’s part of to build and distribute small carts to sell food or other essentials in order to support their families.
And members of the Gaza Sunbirds para-cycling team shot this video of their new project in a camp for displaced people.“Welcome to our humble barbershop,” the post says.
“Hygiene has been tough recently with little water, no soap and no chances for a trim, but we were able to set up a popup barber shop in our camp. We try our best to cherish joyous moments together whenever we can.”
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, 2014)
With additional reporting by Maureen Clare Murphy
