Tareq S. Hajjaj
Mondoweiss / November 29, 2024
This week, families in Gaza City followed orders to evacuate to a nearby school, and then Israel bombed it, killing 18 people. There is no safe choice for Palestinians when they are forced to decide whether to leave their homes.
On Saturday, November 23, the Israeli army sent evacuation orders to Al-Shujai’yya and Al-Zaytoon neighbourhoods, east of Gaza City, two of the most populated areas in Gaza City.
Abdulrahman Eliwa, 11, ran in a hurry and shook toward his mother, Dina, 28, a mother of five kids. He was holding the phone and answered a call from the Israeli army ordering them to leave to the south. His mother screamed after understanding the message. This was not the first time she had received a message like this, Dina and her family had been displaced several times during the Israeli invasion of Gaza, but she knew that, to this point, that attack following each warning had been more brutal than the last.
“I can’t risk staying with my kids who scream with every bomb and hardly sleep, and I do not have anywhere to go,” Dina told Mondoweiss. “The Israelis keep killing people and pushing them to leave; they want our land and will kill us if we stay without a second thought.”
After three days of the warnings, the Israeli army had still not yet invaded the area. This is not uncommon. It happens every time Israel sends an evacuation warning to a location; only the army will choose the moment to start its attack. In the meantime, families need to decide what to do.
Dina returned to her house in the Zaytoon neighbourhood after three days. Some other families returned as well, but they lived in fear. They returned because they could not bear their displaced conditions under the rain and cold, knowing that their homes were just a few kilometers away. But of course, it is not an easy decision to stay as well. Based on the previous Israeli invasions, those who stayed knew they might be forced to leave under Israeli fire. And even if they weren’t, they would face challenging conditions to survive from the Israeli siege of the north which is preventing food and water from entering the area, to detention and death once Israel begins targeting everything that moves on the ground.
Given this, many people followed the army’s orders and left the Shujai’yya and Zaytoon neighbourhoods. They fled to a nearby school, but like many times before, the Israeli military soon made that supposed safe space its next target.
On Tuesday, November 26, the Israeli army bombed the Al-Hurriya School in the Zaytoon area. Fourteen of the people who were killed arrived in local hospitals, and at least four more were not found; in other words, their bodies were completely destroyed.
Inside the Arab Baptist Hospital in Gaza City the spokesman for the Civil Defense, Mahmoud Basal, stands surrounded by bodies and limbs gathered on pieces of cloth and sheets. In a video obtained by Mondoweiss, Basal described the scene of the attack. “The Israeli occupation continues its bombing operations until this moment, and this massacre in the Al-Hurriya School, which houses thousands of displaced people, is being targeted. What this raid left behind is several martyrs, some of whom arrived beheaded and others who, unfortunately, are difficult to identify,” he explained.
“There are a number of martyrs whose fate is unknown until this moment, and they cannot be identified because their bodies are completely torn apart.”
He confirmed that the initial toll is 14 martyrs, some of whom arrived at the Arab Baptist Hospital, and there are still a number in the school under the rubble. He says that rescue crews are having difficulty accessing the area due to the danger of unexploded ordnance.
Basal also commented on Israel’s practice of targeting shelters, displacement camps, and schools. “This is the policy that the Israeli occupation has been following since the beginning of the war until this moment,” he said.
Inside the hospital, the families of the victims, all of whom were displaced and in the school were gathering. One after the other, women cannot suppress their sobs and screams of pain and grief over the loss of their loved ones.
In the middle of the hospital, family members wander here and there looking for their loved ones amid piles of bodies and limbs on the ground, hoping to recognize them.
A woman sitting in front of the bodies screams and says, “I am the mother of a martyr and the sister of a martyr. I lost more than half of my family in the bombing and displacement. They are killing us openly and in front of the world. How long will this death continue in front of the whole world? All we can say is to ask our Lord to take revenge on us from Israel and America and everyone who thinks they have a conscience and does not stop these massacres against us.”
“We left our homes to them when they threatened to kill us if we stayed, and we came to the schools to save our lives. They bombed the schools on us. What do they want? What do we do, and where do we go? We have no choice, and the army is killing us without mercy and does not hesitate to kill hundreds of civilians at once.”
The woman, who did not share her name, looks at the bodies. Behind them are women comforting her and comforting each other, collectively crying while the woman recalls what she saw in the school.
“Those we saw and talked to every day, we saw them after the massacre cut into pieces, limbs and parts and without heads. Our children see these scenes every day. We live with them every moment and imagine that what happened to the martyrs might happen to us. What is our fault for living such a life?”
Tareq S. Hajjaj is the Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent, and a member of the Palestinian Writers Union
