Rights and Accountability 4 July 2024
Israeli forces launched yet another invasion and attack on the Shujaiya neighborhood of Gaza City on 27 June, blowing up entire buildings and residential blocks.
Louise Wateridge, the senior communications officer for UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestine refugees, described the amount of destruction in Shujaiya and the surrounding areas as quote “apocalyptic.”She added that “most people have lost their homes, either completely or partially, and have to flee with very few belongings; essentially what they can carry in their hands. Many people have lost members of their families.”
The UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates that up to 84,000 people have been displaced from Shujaiya over a matter of just a few days.
Israeli forces attacked Jabaliya, also in the north, as well as areas in the central and southern parts of the Gaza Strip this week, including in Bureij refugee camp, where people displaced from Rafah, in the south, have tried to find shelter.
At least four Palestinians were killed in a home in Bureij on 29 June and at least 15 were killed in attacks over the weekend in Rafah.
At the same time, Israeli forces accelerated their attacks on al-Mawasi, the sand dunes to the west of Rafah where displaced Palestinians have set up tents, and where Israeli forces have targeted those tents in recent months.
On Saturday, Israel carpet-bombed and shelled tents in al-Mawasi. A survivor of the massacre told Al Jazeera: “We all ran for our lives, leaving everything behind. All of a sudden the Israeli tanks invaded the area, coupled with helicopter and drone attacks. I saw bodies in pieces and flesh all over the place.”
On Monday, the Israeli army ordered the entire area of eastern Khan Younis to evacuate, and declared that 250,000 people under the evacuation orders should head to al-Mawasi.
The Associated Press reported that 12 people were killed in an airstrike in Deir al-Balah, including nine members of the multi-generational Hamdan family who had fled their home on Monday night after the Israeli military ordered the evacuation of Khan Younis.
“They found refuge with extended relatives in a building further north, inside an Israeli-declared safe zone. But hours after they arrived, an Israeli airstrike on Tuesday afternoon hit their building in the town of Deir al-Balah, killing nine members of the family and three others,” the Associated Press reported.
Dr. Hassan Hamdan, head of the Burns and Plastic Surgery Department at Nasser Hospital, was among those killed in the attack.
In Khan Younis, doctors and staff at the Gaza European Hospital began relocating patients in preparation for Israeli attacks on the medical facility.Medical sources told the Turkish Anadolu News Agency that the hospital’s technical teams also moved some medical devices and equipment out of fear that it would be damaged if the Israeli army raided the hospital.
The spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza told the Associated Press that some families “dragged patients in their hospital beds through the streets for up to 10 kilometers [six miles] to reach safety.”
A doctor at the European Hospital recorded this video on Monday night:
COGAT, the bureaucratic arm of Israel’s army, denied that the military ordered the evacuation of the hospital. Colonel Elad Goren of COGAT told reporters, “It’s safe for them.”The Gaza European Hospital was one of the last hospitals barely operating in the southern Gaza Strip after the Rafah Hospital and Nasser Hospital were forced out of service due to serial and systematic Israeli attacks and lack of basic medicine, medical equipment, clean water and other essential supplies.
The Palestine Red Crescent Society announced Monday that their headquarters at the recently reopened al-Amal Hospital in Khan Younis “is now overcrowded with injuries following the Israeli occupation’s warning to evacuate the al-Fukhari area, where the European Gaza Hospital is located.”
Over the weekend, the medical association said it was forced to stop services in al-Mawasi due to Israeli tank shelling and falling debris which threatened their medical staff. Meanwhile, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya, the director of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, was returned after being arrested while attempting to evacuate southern Gaza in November. He was detained inside Nafha prison, an Israeli concentration camp, for seven months without charge.Our colleague Maureen Clare Murphy reported that Abu Salmiya was released on Monday along with dozens of other Palestinian detainees.
Highlighting resilience
Finally, we want to bring you some images and videos from journalists and others in Gaza who are not just relentlessly documenting the unspeakable atrocities but also making sure to highlight the resilience, joy and determination of the Palestinian people.
This week, the Instagram account Translating Falasteen posted this video of a man in a camp for displaced people. He explains his method for filling large barrels of water without any electricity to pump it, and without needing to carry heavy buckets to the top of the water container or disturb his neighbors.
Abood Batah, a teenager in Gaza who has been regularly posting videos on his social media account documenting the genocide from his point of view, talked about resilience in Gaza.
And in Dallas, Texas, hundreds of supporters came out to welcome a boy named Adam and his mother from Gaza.Adam survived multiple displacements and an Israeli drone attack on his home, but lost his leg in an Israeli attack on his home. He will be receiving medical treatment and will be fitted for a prosthetic limb.
Steve Sosobee, the director of Heal Palestine, the medical aid organization that is helping Adam and other children obtain medical treatment abroad, posted this video of Adam’s welcoming committee this past week:
(Photo: Naaman Omar \ APA images)
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