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nuseirat refugee camp
Many Children Among Hundreds Killed, Wounded in Latest Israeli Bombings of Gaza
"Our ambulances can't transfer wounded people," said one overwhelmed hospital director. "Those who can arrive by themselves to the hospital receive care, but those who don't just die in the streets."
Oct 24, 2024
A devastating wave of Israeli airstrikes across the Gaza Strip on Wednesday and Thursday have killed or wounded hundreds of Palestinians, including many children, according to local and international media reports.
Citing Gaza Civil Defense officials, Palestine's Quds News Networkreported Thursday that at least 150 Palestinian civilians were killed or wounded by Israel Defense Forces (IDF) bombardment of around a dozen apartment towers on Al-Houja Street in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Local and international media outlets earlier reported at least 17 Palestinians were killed and dozens more wounded by an IDF strike on the al-Shuhada school in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
Medical staff at the al-Awda Hospital in Nuseirat—where many people killed and wounded in the strike were taken—told Al Jazeera that 13 children under age 18 and three women were among the dead.
The IDF said the strike targeted a Hamas command-and-control center. However, survivors and eyewitnesses said that all of the dead were women and children.
Gaza Notificationspublished the names of 16 people killed in the attack, including at least five children—the youngest of whom was a baby, just 11 months old.
The outlet said a total of 203 Palestinian civilians have been killed so far on Thursday, and that "all medical and rescue operations have been completely halted by the military administration."
"The Israeli army has warned that ambulances and rescue teams will be directly targeted if they attempt to continue their operations, effectively blocking any humanitarian efforts," the site added.
Gaza's Government Media Office reported 34 Palestinians including 11 children were burned alive in an IDF strike on a youth club-turned shelter in the al-Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza.
Israeli forces have also reportedly attacked hospitals and healthcare workers throughout Gaza. The Palestine Chronicle reported that IDF troops opened fire on Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahia, "with sick children inside."
Hussam Abu Safia, the hospital's director, toldAl Jazeera that IDF tanks surrounded the facility and "directly targeted" it, severely damaging the intensive care unit. On Wednesday, Abu Safia said there were more than 150 wounded people in the hospital, including 14 children in the ICU or neonatal ward.
"There is a very large number of wounded people, and we lose at least one person every hour because of the lack of medical supplies and medical staff," he said. "Our ambulances can't transfer wounded people. Those who can arrive by themselves to the hospital receive care, but those who don't just die in the streets."
The Palestinian Ministry of Health also said several of its employees were wounded by Israeli artillery strikes on Thursday.
Earlier this month, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory released a report detailing how "Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy to destroy Gaza's healthcare system as part of a broader assault on Gaza, committing war crimes and the crime against humanity of extermination with relentless and deliberate attacks on medical personnel and facilities."
Israel's ongoing offensive in northern and central Gaza has killed or wounded more than 2,000 Palestinians this month alone, according to Gaza officials. Since last October, Israel's war on Gaza—which is the subject of a South Africa-led genocide case at the International Court of Justice—has left more than 153,000 Palestinians dead, maimed, or missing; millions more forcibly displaced, starved, or sickened; and most of the coastal enclave in ruins.
Thursday's strikes came as U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to the Middle East, where he is set to take part in cease-fire negotiations with officials from Israel, Egypt, and Qatar in the Qatari capital Doha.
"Going back to the negotiations on ceasefire and the hostages, one of the things we're doing is looking at whether there are different options that we can pursue to get us to a conclusion, to get us to a result," Blinken said Thursday.
The United States is Israel's primary international backer, providing billions of dollars in military aid and diplomatic cover including multiple vetoes of United Nations Security Council cease-fire resolutions.
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Nuseirat, Like Gaza, Is a Representation of a Culture That Cannot Be Broken
I write this because I fear that readers and viewers would only associate Nuseirat with massacres, with lifeless bodies lined up on the floor, covered by the very blankets they used to cover themselves at night.
Jun 25, 2024
I clearly remember my first day at a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, or UNRWA, school in a refugee camp in Gaza. I was five years of age. It felt like my life was over.
The distance from Block Five of the Nuseirat Refugee Camp to the New Camp—located within the municipal boundaries of Nuseirat—was long, exhausting, and terrifying.
I had to walk for several miles, on a very dusty journey that compromised my new, specially tailored red suit and orange sandals.
The words “massacre” and “Nuseirat” became so intertwined in recent months that new headlines often omit further details.
On the arduous journey, passing through citrus orchards and heaps of sand, I was accompanied by hundreds of children, some more experienced and confident, and others, like me, crying all the way to the UNRWA Elementary School for Boys.
On the way, I learned about the “crazy man of the orchard,” the disheveled guard who chases after unruly children whenever they try to pluck orange fruits from the Hirthani trees. I also learned about the unleashed dogs that belonged to some Bedouin tribe, whose bites may result in many rabies injections and terrible pain.
By the time I reached class, my tears turned into sobbing. Learning how to read and write seemed like a worthless exercise, considering the risks of becoming a pupil at an UNRWA school in Gaza.
Alas, there is no immediate happy ending, as I was, indeed, chased by the “crazy man,” bitten by the dogs, ruined my sandals, and ruined my red suit with the large, silver-colored buttons.
But, ultimately, it was all worth the effort. My peers, starting on that very first day of the school year, are now the very great intellectuals of Gaza, the journalists, the teachers, the doctors, the parents, the people that made Gaza the tenacious place that is inspiring the whole world. Many of them have been killed or wounded in this war. Many are still fighting to keep Gaza itself alive.
Though I no longer live in Nuseirat, my relationship with the place grew even stronger with time.
In Arabic we say, “Those far away from the eyes are also far away from the heart.” Gaza, however, is an exception, because the people we leave behind are unforgettable, and because their suffering, especially during times of siege and war, is too extreme to ignore.
As I checked my mobile phone on Thursday, June 6, for news on Gaza, nine months after the start of the war, once more the breaking news: “Massacre in Nuseirat” topped the headlines. The massacre seemed terrible even before the gory details were released.
A few days later, on June 8, a much bigger tragedy occurred; hundreds were killed and wounded.
The words “massacre” and “Nuseirat” became so intertwined in recent months that new headlines often omit further details.
As I viewed the images of those killed and wounded in the Al-Sardi School and later at the central market, I feared that I would recognize some of the faces. This nightmarish scenario has happened before, and repeatedly so, where I would discover that family members, friends, or neighbors were killed or wounded through the news.
Consequently, whenever fresh images from the Gaza onslaught appear, I am always on guard.
In the case of the school massacre, I did not recognize anyone, possibly because the victims are mostly displaced Palestinians from many other areas in the Gaza Strip, whether north or south.
I thought about the school itself. The cluster of UNRWA schools hit in the latest attack hosted more than 50,000 people—mostly children and women.
Only months earlier, that very school was a source of joy, knowledge, friendship, but also trepidation for little children who were being torn away from their families.
Then, like all schools in Gaza, they became shelters to host the bulk of the Gaza population which has been chased by bombs, repeatedly, from the north to the center, from the center to the south and, again, to the center, and so on.
This journey of displacement, along with the accompanying famine, is yet to end. But massacres at United Nations schools-turned-shelters are a whole different level of cruelty.
To alleviate some of the suffering, many volunteers in the camp have been holding all kinds of communal activities at some of these shelters.
Volunteer clowns perform regularly, volunteer barbers cut hair, teachers hold classes, women bake together, local football clubs organize tournaments. All of this is done to reassure the children that, despite the ongoing suffering and the sound of bombs all around them, they will always remain safe inside.
But there is no such safety, neither at schools nor mosques, churches nor even hospitals.
I write this because I fear that readers and viewers would only associate Nuseirat with massacres, with lifeless bodies lined up on the floor, covered by the very blankets they used to cover themselves at night.
Nuseirat, like Gaza, is a representation of a culture that cannot be broken, no matter the firepower, or the extent of the massacres.
For me, Nuseirat is a life that was fully lived, memories that cannot be forgotten, and a future of freedom and dignity that is waiting to take shape.
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'Another Day, Another Israeli War Crime': IDF Kills 17 in Attacks on Nuseirat Refugee Camp
"We want a cease-fire now," said one resident of central Gaza. "Enough of our blood, I say it to Israel, America, and our leaders too. The war must stop."
Jun 18, 2024
Israeli forces killed at least 17 people early Tuesday in attacks on the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza, the site of a recent operation in which Israel's military massacred more than 270 Palestinians to rescue four hostages.
Reporting from central Gaza, Al Jazeera's Hani Mahmoud said it has "been another bloody night" in the area, noting that Israeli forces attacked two homes in Nuseirat that were "accommodating displaced families who had recently evacuated from Rafah."
"The first strike killed 10 people, including women and children. Five of them were from the same family. We're looking at double the number of injuries. More people are still trapped under the rubble," Mahmoud added. "An hour later, the second attack targeted another family's home. The victims include not only the parents and their children, but also the grandparents."
"Another day, another Israeli war crime," Progressive International co-founder Yanis Varoufakiswrote in response to the strikes.
Overnight Israel bombed two homes in Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 17 people pic.twitter.com/4MJgEJGMmQ
— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 18, 2024
The attacks came after an Associated Pressinvestigation detailed how Israel's relentless, U.S.-backed bombardment of Gaza is wiping out entire Palestinian families. Examining 10 deadly Israeli strikes across the Gaza Strip between October and December, the outlet found that "in no case was there an obvious military target or direct warning to those inside."
"In one case," AP added, "the family said they had raised a white flag on their building in a combat zone."
The analyzed strikes killed more than 500 people from several families, AP found. "Nearly every Palestinian family has suffered grievous, multiple losses," the outlet observed. "But many have been decimated, particularly in the first months of the war."
The Israeli military carried out Tuesday's strikes on Nuseirat less than two weeks after killing at least 274 Palestinians in an operation at the refugee camp that rescued four hostages taken during the Hamas-led October 7 attack on southern Israel.
The United Nations Human Rights Office said last week that the number of Palestinian civilians killed during the Israeli operation "seriously calls into question whether the principles of distinction, proportionality, and precaution—as set out under the laws of war—were respected by the Israeli forces."
The attacks on Nuseirat came amid Israel's continued assault on Rafah, a city in southern Gaza that
more than a million people have fled in recent weeks in the face of an Israeli ground invasion that has further imperiled efforts to deliver humanitarian aid to starving Palestinians.
According toReuters, residents of the city reported "heavy bombardments from tanks and planes in several areas" on Tuesday. One resident, identified by Reuters as a father of six, told the news agency that "Rafah is being bombed without any intervention from the world, the occupation is acting freely here."
Another resident, who was displaced to central Gaza, said that with every "hour of delay, Israel kills more people."
"We want a cease-fire now," he added. "Enough of our blood, I say it to Israel, America, and our leaders too. The war must stop."
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