Israeli Tank Crushes Soldiers’ Cars With Friendly-fire Deaths Spike

An Israeli tank ran over vehicles belonging to reserve soldiers in the car park of the Karem Abu Salem crossing-point. If this points to anything, it shows the growing nervousness of the Israeli soldiers, especially since this accident occurred on the Israeli side of the crossing point going into the Gaza Strip.

The incident has been reported by Israel’s Channel 12, Friday, and is trending on the social media. The tank crushed the vehicles completely as reported by the Jerusalem Post showing a photo of the vehicles at the scene.

Brigadier General Elias Hanna of Al Jazeera says this is a minor incident compared to the Israeli soldiers who have been killed by friendly-fire since the war on Gaza started after 7 October.

He said on Al Jazeera satellite channel since the Israeli troop deployment on the streets of Gaza, at least 46 soldiers were reported killed in friendly-fire accidents in the terrain of Gaza.

This number of friendly fire accidents maybe deliberately under-reported by Israeli army sensors. These accidents shows the seriousness of the problem coming weeks after when five soldiers were killed by their own fire in Jabalia in north Gaza while battling Hamas and Palestinian resistance fighters.

Bloggers on the social media say the number of Israeli soldiers increased to at least 50. One blogger says the soldiers “are killing their own by mistake,” and such fatal shooting is “mostly because of unpreparedness and shooting out of fear” as newly reserved soldiers have “neither the experience nor the balls.”

Another points to the fact, with the figures up till 30 May that “almost one in five soldiers are shot by their own side.”

He may have been quoting an earlier article from NPR and written last January, that’s four months into the war on Gaza, that nearly one fifth of Israeli soldiers’ deaths in Gaza related to “friendly-fire accidents, accounting for 36 of the 188 soldiers killed” then with experts saying this is “one of the highest such percentages in recent military history.”

Experts quoted by NPR suggests that the high friendly-fire deaths relate to the “urban combat” and “highly-dense area” of Gaza coupled, the “very loose rule of engagement” adopted by the Israeli army, the lack of experience of Israeli reserves fighting in urban combat and the fact that many soldiers fighting in Gaza are from their late teens to their young 20s.

These factors increase friendly-fire accidents, particularly in this war and with the political leaders breathing down the army these soldiers have had very little training, especially in combat areas like Gaza.

The result of such deaths increased the funerals and mourners in Israel with many Jews increasingly opposed to the war and with 100s of Jewish parents writing to Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to excuse their sons from serving in Gaza.

The figures of those injured in friendly fire accidents are under-reported still but theses may cause alarm as the Jabalia case shows when seven other soldiers were also injured with the five killed.

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Gaza’s 12 Universities Will Rise Up Again

In their war on Gaza, the Israelis pulverized the educational sector in the enclave. There are no schools, no colleges and no universities due to the mass bombs deliberately targeting these institutions since 7 October, 2023.

Over 90,000 Palestinian university students in Gaza have no universities to go back to when the war ends.

Israel’s bombings have turned all of the 12 universities in the Strip into piles of rubble, campuses are a wreck, student lecture halls no longer exists, tumbledown buildings have become the standard textbook case of woes and misery underlined by running sewers and dirty water floods.  

Besides, the mass attack on the higher educational system by Israeli warplanes targetted and killed nearly 100 Palestinian scholars, deans, scientists and professors, calling this criminal rampage as scholastide with the Israeli intention of destroying the whole system of education in the Gaza Strip as UN experts pointed out.

To demonstrate his outrage, Palestinian-American Dr Tariq Haddad refused to meet US Secretary Anthony Blinken after Israel killed 100 people from his family in its Gaza genocide. Among his family, included physicians and professors who were murdered wantonly.

The attack on the universities was deliberate attempt to destroy Palestinian culture and learning.  Al-Aqsa University in Khan Yunis, in the south of the Gaza Strip, was completely decimated, made dysfunctional by an Israeli regime that has long forgotten knowledge culture and civilization.

Al Aqsa University began to be destroyed slowly since the end of 2023. As Palestinians started to move in search of safe areas, they found Al Aqsa University. It had been turned into a place for the thousends of displaced people being forced out of their homes by Israeli warplanes.

Once the Israeli army started to hear of that, they increased the bombing of this institution accomplanied by carnage, killing and mayhem.

The same is the case with the Islamic University in Gaza which was completely destroyed by the Israeli occupation forces.

The Islamic University was the biggest educational learning in Gaza, yet all of its faculties were completely destroyed soon after 7 October.

There are plenty of pictures that show “before and after” – a horrendous, vicious attack on educational learning.

One Israel soldier relished his destructive work so much, decided to film himself walking through Al Azhar University which is now lie in a desolate, dilapidated state.

In a mock display, he walks among its ruins, saying the university is now closed for reconstruction and asking the Israeli soldiers who have now come to occupy its wrecked and debris-ridden halls, if they want to sign up for the new semester.

In rememberance of their destructions, Middle East Eye ran a piece on those higher learnings that once existed. Besides the Islamic University of Gaza and the Aqsa University, there was Al Israa University, Al Azhar University, Palestine Technical College, University College of Applied Sciences, University of Palestine, Gaza University, Hassan II University of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences and Dar Al Kalima University.

But there all gone now. US Congressman Bernie Sanders tries to emphasize the point across to the US Senate about student protesters in US university campasses for the support of Palestine. He told Senators in Gaza there are no student protesters because every one of the 12 campuses there were destroyed by the Israelis.

Another Israeli soldier found it appropriate to take a selfie of himself behind a book shelves in Al Aqsa University which he just set on fire.

The rampage of the University which is located in Khan Younis, to the South of Gaza City, was second largest city in Gaza, occupied for the best part of three months by the Israeli army in a bid to get rid of Hamas and Palestinian resistance fighters.

Israeli soldiers gave up last April and left. They hadn’t destroyed the resistance, but what they decimated Khan Younis, its university, colleges and schools. It was pure terroristic vandalism.

The photo of the Israeli soldier went viral. It shows him holding a book while a fire burns behind him in the Al Aqsa University library that is one of the largest book depositories in the Gaza Strip.

Despite the killing of its doctors, nurses, computer scientists, engineers, teachers, lectures, workers, journalists and many other professions, Palestinians are still hopeful about the “day after” when the war will end.

The image of 21-year-old Duaa from deep down Gaza is heartening. It is a call for the outside world to let her continue her studies despite the fact “…we are living in a state of occupation war that destroyed my home, my country, and my university…” she said.

And there are many like her which means the destroyed universities will be rebuilt one day and the educational system will be rebuilt and reconstituted despite the Israeli slaughter because Palestinians will not go anywhere accept stay in Gaza.

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UNICEF: 9 out of 10 Children in Gaza Go Hungry

Nine out of 10 children in Gaza suffer from sever malnutrition according to UNICEF. The malnutrition manifested itself after the 7 October, 2023 war when Israel promised it would impose a “complete siege” on Gaza denying the 2.2 million population electricity, food, water and fuel.

“Five rounds of data collected between December 2023 and April 2024 have consistently found that nine out of 10 children in the Gaza Strip are experiencing sever food poverty, surviving on two or fewer fewer group per day,” a UNICEF report quoted by Palestinian news agency Wafa.

UNICEF added months of agression – this is the start of the nine month of war that Israel waged on Gaza – has resulted in the complete destitution and displacement of people who are being forced to move from one area to another in the enclave as their houses are being bombed.

To meet the minimum level of dietary diversity for healthy development, “children must consume foods from at least 5 of the 8 food groups determined by the dietary diversity score used by UNICEF and WHO,” as pointed out in Al Jazeera.  

The hunger and malnutrition is being exacerbated by the intence bombing the Gaza Strip has been subjected to in this war that saw Israel drop 70,000 tons of explosives on the enclave.

Tel Aviv’s “indiscriminate attacks” on Palestinian children and women are “clearly Israeli war crimes,” said the head of a Norwegian non-governmental organization, as quoted by the Anadolu Turkish news agency.

“It is obscene to continue waging war through refugee camps. Even if Hamas committed the war crime of hiding fighters among displaced civilians, these continued, indiscriminate attacks killing scores of children and women are clearly Israeli war crimes, he said on the X platform.

His comments came after at least 39 displaced Palestinians were killed, Thursday, in Israeli airstrike on a school sheltering thousands of displaced people in the Nuseirat refugee camp, the central Gaza Strip, according to Gaza authorities.

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Al Breij Camp Prepares For More Israeli Bombs

Israeli raids are now continuing on central Gaza with vengeance. The Israeli army say they will not stop, now bombing the Gaza Strip almost simultaneously. Rafah, in the south, north of Gaza in places like Jabalia and Biet Hannon, the Israeli war machine is focusing on central Gaza.

There is no remorse here, the old/new places being targeted are Dier Al Balah in the west, and Al Maghazi and Brieij camps in the center and center east of the enclave are being bombed.

Dumb bombs and missiles thud down. People are yet to get used to the explosions suddenly made by Phantom 16 jets from the sky, centering on Al Al Breij Camp.

There is no mercy here! With every bombardment there are deaths, those injured and of course destruction of homes, houses and buildings with people scurrying around to carry those killed and wounded. Blood everywhere!

In Al Breij, struck now for the umpteenth time, Al Jazeera journalist Ashraf Abu Amra is on the scene live with lots of commentary from eyewitness reports who said the raid on the house was a big one with the killed and injured still being counted.

This was an area in Breij congested with people at this time of day. They were moving around trying to make sense of what is happening to them.

The house that was struck was full of people at the time.

“We were sitting down in the house with other young people when the raid started,” one eyewitness said.

“The house has no members of the resistance,  there are no missiles here and no terrorists as the Israelis would says; all there was here, were kids and youths as you can see around you,” he added.

“But without prior warning we saw missiles land here from F16 planes.”

Another eyewitness focused on the area, congested with people outside and children playing in the street.

“In this road there are more swings for children than there are children. Anyone who looks at this street can see either young people playing with the ball or sitting on the swings; these are people who are trying to get away from the war, the hot weather, from the bad situation we are in,” he said.  

“It’s more than 200 days of suffering, the world has forgot that there is here more than 2 million human beings here, civilians who neither have a gun nor able to shoot at anyone else. All we want is to live like other people in the world,”

The Israeli army has said it has started ground military operations in these areas based on sources from their intelligence services that are Palestinian resistance fighters.

But judging from the massacres we have unfortunately become used to in Gaza, the Israeli army would come in, embark on a bloody rampage of civilians, destroy the area and then leave after receiving a bloody nose from the resistance who would come from deep underground tunnels.

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Israel Drops 70,000 tons of Explosives on Gaza

Israel has dropped more than 70,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip between 7 October and 24 April according to the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

The 70,000 tons of explosives are trending on the social media. One writes the “the carbon footprint and the scale of genocide are beyond any horror witnessed.”

Historical figures are revealing. The nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were about 15,000 tons of explosives.

What is revealing and devastating the bombs dropped on the enclave surpass those dropped on Dresden, Hamburg and London during World War II, the Monitor pointed out.

One points out the 70,000 tons that landed basically on all Gaza, from the north to the south and from the east to the west and the center of the enclave in the past eight months are roughly the equivalent to about 4.67 atomic bombs of the size dropped on Hiroshima.

The total number of bombs dropped by the German and the allies on each other was only 30,700 tons for the whole duration of WWII between 1939 and 1945.

The Germans on London 18,300 tons of explosives between 1940 and 1941. This is whilst historical records show the allies dropped 3,900 tons of TNT on the city of Dresden in German.

Another blogger suggests Gaza, an area of 364 kilometers is “five times smaller than the size of London,” and “how can anybody not call this kind of bombing other than ethnic cleansing.”

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