Tired Gaza Voices Speak of Israeli Atrocities

The Israeli army is escalating its targeting of all aspects and basic elements of life in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates, in an attempt to render them uninhabitable and force their citizens to evacuate to the southern governorates according to Euromed Monitors.

In its 10th month of continuing genocide, the Israeli army is intensifying its attacks with mass killings, starvation, deprivation of medical care, intimidation, arbitrary arrests, torture, and forced evacuations.

Israeli airstrikes against the Gaza Strip have expanded to target every basic aspects of daily life. These include direct targeting of vendors at their stands, Internet distribution centers, and areas where people gather, including where women fill water containers or prepare food, in addition to the ongoing targeting of homes and shelters.

Blocking any attempt to restore even the barest necessities of life in Gaza City and North Gaza governorates, the Israeli army appears to aim to force residents to comply with the orders it continues to issue to evacuate all inhabitants of the two governorates.

Israeli fire on women cooking

On Saturday, 20 July, at around 9 a.m., the Israeli army opened fire on several women who were cooking and filling water containers in their home. Noura Al-Sabbagh, 28, was killed, and several others were injured during the attack, one of whom was in critical condition. The incident occurred in the hallway of a home in the Zarqa neighbourhood of northern Gaza.

Saif Ali Al-Sabbagh told Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor: “We suddenly heard the sound of a missile fired by an Israeli drone, targeting the women who were in the house’s corridor working on preparing food without prior notice. Noura Al-Sabbagh was standing close to the stove when the missile’s fragments instantly killed her. The rest of the women were brought to the Baptist Hospital with injuries described by the medical teams as moderate and serious. One of the women suffered a serious injury. This totally unnecessary bombing caught us off guard. The area quickly filled with blood and shrapnel, with women being specifically targeted.” 

On Tuesday, 2 July, 10 Palestinians were killed by Israeli artillery shells, including a child and a disabled person, as they gathered to fill water containers in the Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood south of Gaza City. 

Thirty-four-year-old Muhammad Khaled Al-Malahi described what happened, saying: “At 11.30 a.m., as I was leaving the house, I saw an artillery shell (fired by Israeli tanks) falling on people, children, and young people, who were lining up to fill and transport water to their homes next to the Al-Shamaa Mosque, which was destroyed by the Israeli army at the onset of the war. After the shell fell, people fell to the ground and left the water gallons empty, and we began transporting the victims on animal-drawn carts to the Baptist Hospital.”

“This is not the first time that people have bottled water in the Shamaa area. Ever since the war started, people of all ages—men, women, and children—have been arriving at the Shamaa area to fill water containers and then carry it back to their homes. Adjacent to the mosque’s debris lies a water filling station with food, candy, and nut stalls. It is a bustling neighbourhood with constant public movement and a high concentration of displaced people, particularly after the ongoing Israeli invasion of the Shujaiya neighbourhood,” he said.

Shooting at vendors

On Tuesday, 26 June, Euro-Med Monitor documented the killing of three Palestinians, Jawad Ali Al-Zabut, 40, his son Ali, 18, and Mahmoud Fouad Zahra in an Israeli attack on a group of vendors in downtown Gaza City. Four other people were injured in the attack.

Speaking to Euro-Med Monitor, Dawoud Al-Zabut provided the following information regarding the targeting of Jawad and his son: “Jawad and his son go out every day to sell in the streets where residents pass by, like the intersection where families congregate west of Gaza City. For the past two months, Jawad has operated a small stand where he sells candies to help support his displaced family. He and his son Ali were on their mat at 8:30 a.m. when a reconnaissance plane fired a missile into the area. The missile fragments killed both of them, while his brother’s sons were injured.”

Days after designating specific routes as safe, to allow people to escape to the south without being subject to inspections, Israeli forces sent voice messages to residents of these two governorates, requesting that they evacuate to the south of the Gaza Valley amid the ongoing airstrikes and artillery shelling.

In testimony provided to Euro-Med Monitor, however, it was revealed that the Israeli army tracks individuals moving through the designated passageways on Salah al-Din Road and Al-Rashid Street in Gaza City using electronic monitoring equipment.

According to an anonymous eyewitness, the Israeli army equipped an escape corridor with monitoring devices. Israeli forces were stationed several metres away, and soldiers controlled who was allowed to pass by illuminating a green light for passage or a red light for no entry and exposure to direct fire.

The witness saw numerous bodies of displaced people who had been shot during their evacuation attempt and had been left to bleed to death. Among them was a man on an animal-drawn cart; a military bulldozer intervened to remove both the man and the cart from the area.

Moving under the bombs

Residents are being directed to relocate to the central Gaza Strip by the Israeli army, which last week intensified aerial bombardment of the area and launched dozens of raids that resulted in the deaths of over 160 people, most of them women and children, including a sizable number of displaced individuals.

Israel plans to exterminate the Gaza Strip’s population by starvation and murder, as well as the destruction of all fundamental elements of existence. This includes attacking the UN headquarters and its shelters and carrying out mass killings there, all of which are unquestionably international crimes.

By targeting UNRWA schools functioning as shelter centers, Israeli bombing tactics demonstrate a deliberate intention to prevent security across the entire Gaza Strip and deny displaced Palestinians stability or shelter, even if that shelter is only temporary.

According to UNRWA, Israel has bombed 190—more than half—of the agency’s facilities in the Gaza Strip, some of them more than once since the genocide began. As a result, thousands of Palestinian civilians have been killed and injured while seeking refuge.

War-ravaged enclave

By UN estimates, 1.9 million people in the war-ravaged enclave are internally displaced, including some individuals who have now been displaced up to nine or 10 times. Israel’s evacuation orders, its widespread damage to both public and private infrastructure, restrictions on access to essential services, and the ongoing Israeli violence constitute the main causes of the mass displacement waves.

Given these facts, all nations must fulfill their international obligations by enacting strong sanctions against Israel and severing all political, financial, and military support and cooperation. This should include immediately halting arms transfers to Israel, including export permits and military aid; otherwise, these nations will be held accountable for the crimes that have been committed in the Gaza Strip, including genocide.

Furthermore, accountability must be established at the local, regional, and global levels. Working diligently and cooperatively to pave the way for universal jurisdiction will enable national courts to hold accountable the perpetrators of crimes against Palestinian civilians.

Additionally, the International Criminal Court must continue to investigate any and all crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip; broaden its investigation into criminal responsibility of all parties, including Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Galant, in order to hold all perpetrators accountable; issue arrest warrants for those responsible; and acknowledge and address Israel’s crimes in the Strip as international crimes that fall under the purview of the International Criminal Court and are clearly crimes of genocide.

This article is reproduced from Euromed Monitors.

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Living in a Tent: Gazans Pour Out Their Woes

Across vast agricultural lands and along the coast in central and southern Gaza, tens of thousands of tents have become shelters for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians displaced by the ongoing, bloody Israeli war for the 10th consecutive month.

Once a symbol of the Nakba (catastrophe) and displacement for more than seven decades, the tent has now become a dream for thousands of displaced families in Gaza, despite the harsh living conditions it imposes.

What is it like to live in a tent? This question might seem devoid of emotions and disconnected from the harsh realities of Gaza amid the Israeli genocide that has taken many Palestinian lives but failed to break their will and determination to cling to their land. However, the  question is crucial to understand the extent of the Palestinian tragedy and resilience.

The Palestinian Information Center (PIC) interviewed some of those that were displaced and are now living in tents to see the harsh situation they are now under.

Quest for a tent


Whilest all those interviewed speak of the difficulty of living in a tent – suffering the harsh hot summers and cold winters – for many of the displaced, the tent has become a dream come true as it is easily hoisted and dismantled quickly. This is important for those displaced who needed to move more than once because of the Israeli army gunfire, tanks, drones and warplanes.

Mohammed Said said he bought a tent for 1,200 shekels ($330) after he could no longer bear living in a “khas,” a makeshift shelter made of wooden sticks covered with nylon or any other available material.

He explained a khas provides no privacy because of the mostly nylon material its made of and its impossible to move when forced to relocate. Thus, he went for a tent, having relocated at least twice already.

Various NGOs provide tents for free, but with demand shooting up some of the tents have started to be sold, forcing people to buy them due to the lack of alternatives. Today tents vary in shape and size, according to how much you want to pay.

Finding a place to set up the tent
After getting a tent, the second challenge is to find a place to set it up. Such areas are currently limited to around Khan Yunis and Deir al-Balah.

Khaled Al-Masri said he had to move his tent several times to be close to water sources and/or the scarce aid.

“Today, there are camps made up of a group of tents overseen by an association or individuals’ initiatives to provide some aid, ensure water access, and establish shared bathrooms. Other tents are set up randomly on agricultural land and near destroyed homes,” he said.

Life in the tents


Living in tents are tales of pain and suffering, varying according to the family’s resources, number size, tent location and the supervising entity.

A small family with a tent in an area receiving aid can adapt better and suffer less compared to an extended family with a small tent in an area lacking in services.

With the scorching summer heat, living in a tent among hundreds of others in Gaza feels like a living hell said  Amani Hamdan.

Hamdan told PIC she was forced to live in a tent on a land of a friend of her husband.  She is joined by her mother-in-law, disabled sister-in-law and her four children.

 “We relocated at least seven times from Khan Yunis since our house was bombed. Initially, we had no tent and suffered much until we managed to obtain one, and its only advantage is it can be unhooked easily if we need to move again.

Living in a tent is harsh and difficult, a  primitive life. And with no walls, and privacy, our voices reach the people in the tent next door and theirs reach us,” she added.

Suffering in tents


“We can hardly move around inside the tent, some  sleep on mattresses, some without, part of the tent holds food supplies. The temperature is scorching, forcing us out of the canvas. In winter, we were drenched by rain; now, the heat is unbearable, but we thank God for what we have,” Hamdan added.

“We cook on fire outside the tent, bake bread in a shared oven, share a bathroom, and bathe rarely, needing prior coordination with the other tent partners. The children start their morning search for wood, while my husband travels long distances for water that is sometimes brought by volunteers. Life has become primitive with no kitchen, bathroom, or water faucets.”

What is a tent?


After enduring the harsh tent life for months, engineer Mohammed Munir wrote about its meaning, “To burn while sitting inside, to suffocate with no air or cooling. It’s like a greenhouse during the day.”

 “A tent means living on the ground, separated only by fabric, coexisting with all the insects of the earth as you are now their guest,” He wrote on Facebook.

“Normal activities become complicated, like taking a nap or a bath, walking comfortably, sitting peacefully, feeling safe, or sleeping without back pain from the hard ground, all of our dreams are now out of reach.

A tent means no privacy, speaking in whispers inside your tent while your neighbor hears you. With tents set up on sand and agricultural land, it means living with all types of insects and with no hygiene,” Munir concluded.

The meaning of a tent


“A tent means having no wall to lean on, no private life,” Sama Hassan wrote.

 “Displacement means not to live in safety or stability. We first moved from Gaza City to the north in search of ‘fake’ safety until the missiles to land on us. We then fled to southern Gaza in the first Friday of the war and stayed in Khan Yunis for two months, then moved to Rafah when the city was invaded in early December 2023.

 With each relocation, I lost a thread of my privacy, becoming more displaced and homeless like thousands in Gaza. A tent is harsher than a shared room in a stranger’s house as the bathroom is either within the tent, set up primitively, or shared, half a kilometer away, established by a charity. If a woman needs to use it at night, she must wake a man to escort her,” she ended by saying.

Life in a tent is hard for women, who must fully dress as they usually do when they go out of the house. She maintains dressed at all time despite the heat, lack the freedom of movement. In the tent, fires are lit, cooking is made, washing dishes, with large water containers placed in the corner.

Bathing in a tent involves women surrounding the one washing with thick blankets, like forming a small tent within the main tent, with the woman hurrying before the others tire of holding the blankets.

If living in a tent is already insufferable, doing so amid the ongoing Israeli genocide and bombings is even more so, because the strikes continue targeting as what happened to us in Rafah and Khan Yunis. This is beyond words.

In recent months, Israeli bombs have burned tents and killed dozens, leaving survivors to search for the remains of their their loved ones before finding a new place to set up another tent if one is available, continuing their struggle.

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Shattered Dreams of Gaza

In Gaza, where daily life has become a battle for survival, the stories of Palestinians who lost their homes in the midst of the genocidal war waged by Israel on the Strip 10 months ago come as a mirror-image reflecting the suffering of an entire people, carrying with it bitter human details of what it means for someone to lose their home.

The Al-Sayyid family was living in peace until that fateful night. “The night had fallen, and suddenly, we heard the sound of a huge explosion. Then the voices of the remaining neighbors shouted ‘I had to evacuate the area because there was a threat to blow up the residential tower opposite my house,’” Ahmed, the father, tells the Palestinian Information Center.

At first Ahmed’s family of a wife and seven children moved to a shelter school in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood south of Gaza City, and as the Israeli ground invasion expanded, they moved to Al-Aqsa University in Khan Younis but when the Israeli army withdrew from the city, they went back.

“I did not wait a minute after I learned of the occupation army retreat to the northern parts of Gaza Strip. Me and my brother rushed to inspect our three-story house. As soon as we arrived there, we were shocked by what happened to the place,” Ahmed told the PalestineIn formation Center Tuesday.

“I found a large part of the house destroyed by artillery shells and burning furniture. It was harsh moments. This is the first time I have faced such an experience like thousands of others who repeatedly lost their homes in previous Israeli wars.”

The man, who is in his 50s, stresses “losing a house is not an easy matter. You are not lose stones here. You feel as if someone has token you to a distant world, erasing a lifetime from your memory. In every corner of the house there are memories, feelings, emotions and life experiences.”

Israel has systematically and extensively destroyed homes in Gaza, completely destroying hundreds of thousands of housing units and in just 283 days,  it has turned their owners and residents into homeless people living in tents and shelters.

Israel warplanes bomb houses over the heads of their residents resulting in their instant deaths. In many times the people mostly women and children are deeply buried in the rubble of these homes. This is not to forget the aerial bombardment of blowing up residential blocks.

Residents ask why is this happening to us? There is no need for it. International organizations protest and condemn but to no avail.

Ahmed points out the psychological and social pain is more severe than the material loss. “Many a time, my tongue twists and turns when my children ask ‘we are going to get back to our house, how long will it take to repair it, how long do we have to stay here?,” Ahmad waves his hands at a loss.

 “How can children feel safe in a temporary shelter? They have lost everything, even their small toys.”

Satellite images by the United Nations Satellite Center show 35% of all buildings in the Gaza Strip are either completely destroyed or extensively damaged due to this Israeli war of annihilation. This means the number of buildings razed to the ground is 88,868.

In its last March assessment, the center used high-resolution images taken by satellites and collected on 29 February, and compared them with images taken before and after the outbreak of the war.

Dreams crushed

Whenever she remembers her home and her memories there, Aya Ahmad, is reduced to tears.  “I had a private room and/or a suite. All my memories, books, and office are gone now.”

“I am a medical student at the beginning of my third year, and at the beginning of my university studies, my father prepared the second floor of our house, bought me a large collection of medical books, and prepared a special room for me with an office, on the walls of which I wrote my hopes and ambitions,” Aya told the Palestinian Center

The 23-year-old girl lives in the city of Khan Yunis, and she has never been forced to move in previous Israeli wars on Gaza, as in this war.

“This is the first time I have been displaced, and when we were forced to do so at the beginning of December 2023, we cried a lot then. We took a few of the house’s belongings in the hope that we will get back.

But this wasn’t so, its been 10 months now since the war started, it hasn’t stopped, we were not able to return to our house which we lost subsequently due to the bombing, and we lost most of our personal belongings there. We moved between tents, and we lost many loved ones, and then the destruction of the house increased our pain. My certificates, my clothes, and my memories were all crushed, and with them many dreams were lost too.”

The garden of the house was Aya’s refuge after the rigors of a long university day. She had pleasant evenings with her parents under the palm and lemon trees on summer nights. But no more, for all of the family now are sheltering in tents of those that were forcefully displaced.

“My wish was to return home, I even wanted to return to it after the occupation forces retreated from our area. At the time, it was still standing and was only partially damaged, but the occupation army returned months later and bombed.”

Aya is still confident about rebuilding her house and whatever

the occupation destroyed, despite the pain she experiences whenever she looks at pictures of her former home and the social memories of each moment there.

A UN assessment found it would need a fleet of more than 100 trucks working for 15 years to remove the 40 million tons of rubble in Gaza. Such an operation could between $500 and $600 million.

According to the assessment by the UN Environment Programme, last month, 137,297 buildings were damaged in Gaza alone not to say anything about the destroyed buildings.

Not stones!

As for Abeer Abu Salem, resident in the Beit Lahia Project in the north Gaza, the smell of gunpowder still haunts her, as if it had just happened. “I will never forget what I experienced that evening, and it cannot be erased from my memory. I cannot describe the scene because of the horror of what I saw.”

Abeer recounts what happened: “I heard the sound of an explosion and saw the walls collapsing and columns flying. I tried to escape but could not, and with the air closing in, I found myself in the second room. I cannot imagine that I am still alive. It all happened in seconds, turning my life upside down.”

Abeer stayed in the Indonesian hospital for about a month, before the occupation army forced them to flee to the south of the Gaza Strip. When asked about what it means to lose a house, she answers:

“It is not easy to lose your house you grew up in. The house is full of precious memories. We worked hard for many years so that my father could build it for us as an apartment above the family home.”

She points out the fear she experiences is not related to their ability to rebuild the house that was leveled, as much as it is to the emotional feelings of seeing what happened to the family home.

 “We are now displaced. We do not know the fate that awaits us after the end of this cursed war. We cannot think about whether we will truly return to Beit Lahia or whether we will live what our ancestors lived when they forcibly left their homes 76 years ago in the Nakba of 1948 and died on “I hope to return,” she laments.

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UN Security Council Must Act to Stop Israeli Atrocities in Gaza

Palestinian Territory – The Security Council, UN General Assembly, and all international justice institutions must act swiftly and decisively to compel Israel to cease its frequent, systematic military assaults against shelter centres housing internally displaced people. In defiance of international law, Israel has turned shelters, including UN facilities into acceptable targets and have served as the backdrop for multiple, willful mass killings in front of the world.

Israel’s frequent attacks and bombings of UN facilities, which have left hundreds of civilians dead or injured, are a blatant manifestation of the international community’s refusal to put an end to the crime of genocide, ongoing for nearly 10 consecutive months. This crime is a result of Israel’s decades-long international impunity, and is evidence of its unrelenting collective punishment of the Palestinian people.  

Horrific attacks

The most recent of these horrific attacks took place at 2:50 p.m. on Sunday 14 July, when Israeli warplanes attacked the UNRWA-run Abu Oreibat school, which is home to thousands of people who were forcibly displaced to the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip. Fifteen people were killed, including at least one woman, and numerous others had their bodies blown to pieces. Eighty people were also injured, mostly women and children.

Euro-Med Monitor’s team has documented hundreds of similar cases in which Israeli aircraft bombed shelter centres housing thousands of forcibly displaced people, killing hundreds inside them, in flagrant violation of international laws, especially those regulating the principles of war.

Since the start of Israel’s genocidal war in the Gaza Strip, UNRWA has documented 456 attacks on its buildings, some of which were targeted more than once. According to UNRWA, 188 of its facilities have been were affected during these attacks. At least 524 displaced people who took refuge in UNRWA shelter centres have been killed, and at least 1,621 others injured, since last October.

In addition, there have been hundreds of deaths and thousands of injuries in other shelter centres as well as camps for internally displaced persons inside the Israeli-proclaimed “humanitarian safe zone” to which residents have been forcibly displaced in recent months.

In Israel’s horrific massacre in the area of Al-Mawasi in Khan Yunis on 13 July, Israeli aircraft dropped eight devastating United States bombs on a crowd of tens of thousands of forcibly displaced people. At least 90 individuals were killed, and 300 others were wounded, many of them women and children who lost limbs and/or were paralysed in the attack. Medical teams faced difficulties in treating these victims, as the Gaza Strip’s health system has collapsed due to the systematic Israeli attacks targeting it since 7 October.

Israel’s attempt to use the justification of “targeting military or factional leaders” to legitimise crimes that result in the deaths of hundreds of civilians is unacceptable. Whether or not its accusations are verified, Israel is still required to follow the rules of international humanitarian law in all situations, including those involving military objectives. This means adhering to the principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity (taking all reasonable precautions to protect civilians), such as selecting the mode of operation and weaponry that will result in the least amount of civilian casualties and damage to civilian objects. Euro-Med Monitor notes that, regardless of how closely one party follows the rules of international humanitarian law, the other party is still legally required to abide by and honour the provisions of the law.

Israel systematically and repeatedly violates the principles of distinction, proportionality, and necessity, using bombs and ammunition with enormous destructive power that are imported from other countries, the majority of which are American-made. This makes the US—and any other country that supplies Israel with weapons—partners in the killing, which is occurring at a rate never before seen in the history of modern warfare.

In this regard, the UN Security Council should call an emergency session to discuss the consequences of these systematic crimes against Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, including those who have been displaced and who sought, or are currently seeking, refuge in camps and shelter centres. It should also support efforts to hold those responsible for these crimes accountable, particularly since they are being committed in violation of international law and the UN Charter, i.e. against civilians who are protected and civilian objects that are protected.

The Security Council and the UN General Assembly must act seriously and swiftly to stop the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip by adopting effective international resolutions with executive mechanisms and imposing sanctions and deterrent measures against Israel to ensure that it stops its crimes and grave violations in the Strip. Israel and its allies must be pressured to respect international law and the rulings of the International Court of Justice.

Based on the aforementioned, all nations are required to fulfil their international obligations by enacting strong sanctions against Israel and severing all other types of political, financial, and military support and cooperation. This includes immediately halting arms transfers to Israel, including export permits and military aid; otherwise, these nations will be held accountable for the crimes that have been committed in the Gaza Strip, including genocide.

Additionally, the International Criminal Court ought to keep looking into any and all crimes committed by Israel in the Gaza Strip; broaden its investigation into criminal responsibility, in order to hold all perpetrators accountable; issue arrest warrants for those responsible; and acknowledge and address Israel’s crimes in the Strip, as they are international crimes that fall under the purview of the International Criminal Court and are clearly crimes of genocide.

This article is a reprint from a piece in the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor.

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UNRWA Chief: ‘…Air Filled With The Smell of Blood’

CROOSFIREARABIA – “The air was filled with the smell of blood,” Scott Anderson, deputy humanitarian Coordinator, UNRWA Affairs Director in Gaza said during his visit to the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis.

“Visiting the Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis yesterday, I witnessed some of the most horrific scenes I have seen in my nine months in Gaza,” he added.

“This overstretched health facility admitted well over 100 of yesterday’s severe injuries. With not enough beds, hygiene equipment, sheeting, or scrubs, many patients were treated on the ground without disinfectants,” he pointed ot.

“Ventilation systems were switched off due to a lack of electricity and fuel, and the air was filled with the smell of blood,” he said according to the Palestine News Agency WAFA.

“I saw toddlers who are double amputees, children paralyzed and unable to receive treatment and others separated from their parents. I also saw mothers and fathers who were unsure if their children were alive. Parents told me in despair that they had moved into the ‘so-called humanitarian zone’ in the hope that their children would be safe there,” he said.

“My colleagues from the humanitarian community are doing everything possible to increase medical capacity in Gaza, where the health system has long been on the ropes. Yesterday, we provided referral services, as well as additional tents, beds, stretchers, disposables, and medications. But impediments to humanitarian operations prevent us from supporting people anywhere near the scale necessary,” Anderson added.

“Civilians must be protected at all times. We urgently need a ceasefire, the release of all remaining hostages, respite for the people of Gaza, and a meaningful opportunity for healing to begin,” he concluded.

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