CrossFireArarbia

Murder in a Beach Cafe

CrossFireArabia
July 4, 2025

In a place that gazes over the horizons and links the sky with the sea, Ismael Abu Al Hattub was martyred. He wasn’t killed in battle but in a simple café on a Gaza beach. It was the place that he was planning to hold his photography exhibition, but failed to see the light.

This beach which he loved, wrote about and photographed under fire and siege, stamped his final existence and obituary.

He once saw a temporary retreat in the place snatched by the gray strikes made by Israeli raids. Abu Al Hattub saw the beach as mirroring the new disdain life has become…a platform for death, blood and mayhem.

صديقي العزيز، الصحفي والمصوّر إسماعيل أبو حطب، شهيدًا في مجزرة كافيتيريا الباقة غرب #غزة.

أُصيب إسماعيل بداية الحرب، إصابةً خطيرة، وتعافى منها لاحقًا بعد معاناة طويلة، ليستشهد الآن.

كان في الميدان رغم كُلّ شيء، ولم يتوقّف عن التوثيق والنشر والتصوير! pic.twitter.com/FY61m0pHNX
— Meqdad Jameel (@Almeqdad) June 30, 2025

He wasn’t merely a journalist but a witness, holding his camera, as if it was open to the world for a life stage in which reality had become a goal to strike. He led his visual project from the ruins of Gaza and made his picture image an “ambassador” to be narrated to the world.

At the height of the military strikes and bombing, with the homes brought to the ground, Abu Al Huttab used to document not only through his lens but by his heartbeat writing on World Press Day that “in Gaza the camera is targeted, the word is struck down and the vest is dammed by the thudding missiles.

These words were not poetic descriptions but a stark reality his body lived through. Last November 2024 he escaped from certain death while he was photographing the Al Ghafari Tower that was viciously struck.

He came back after a year of hardship and pain to continue what he started, to become a voice in the era of silence and the eye in the stage of blindness.

Between the skies and the sea

Between the tents, the debris and wreckage and between the displaced people on roads Abu Al Hattub collected his photographs refusing to tuck away his camera till the strange sounds of death.

And as a result, he sent his photos to be seen in a joint Palestinian platform exhibit in Los Angeles. However, this wasn’t an ordinary exhibition but an echo dangling on western walls narrating the heinous situation of Gaza.

“From the middle of Gaza under the airstrikes, displacement and starvation I was determined to hold this exhibition from afar to tell the story of our people who have no refuge but the beach,” he wrote.

He would say in every “image there is a soul” and the photos are able to defeat the walls and penetrate the thick international silence.

A dream buried in the sand

He was supposed to train, this week, digital security to a group of journalists in Gaza, he had a date with the interested generation of the future. However, his fate with death was sealed. It was a cruel moment by an even cruellest pretending-to-be master race.

His life passed before our eyes after his face was changed into a collective presence as the tent he was living in became his platform, the sea a sanctuary and the lens resistance.

Journalist Muthana Al Najjar wrote: “The owner of the tent exhibition in the middle of Los Angeles, ascended to the heavens after joining the martyrs after a raid on a makeshift café…he tried to show the Gaza tragedy to the world through an exhibition titled in between the sky and the sea and was made absent in an air strike on the beach he loved so much.”

He departed but his pictures remain, and the narrative is there for all to see. He added the youths of Gaza continue to dare to live despite all the odds stacked against them. The Israeli war machine will not win.

He is not the last number to be killed but one of 228 journalists Israeli warplanes targeted during this genocide. Their pens were broken, but their messages remain and whilst the photo lens has dropped in silence the picture will continue to echo.

What Abu Hattub presented was not only a painful picture but a stubborn visual language that doesn’t submit to the American-made bombs and missiles or the continuing siege. He realized that the camera was not objective but rather biased to the truth, justice and people.

Today as the smoke towers above the Gaza Sea, his words remain, his narratives fly over depicting that Gazans are determined to live and stay on their land in the face of extraordinary adversary.

News

Israeli Strikes Beach Cafe With US Bombs

CrossFireArabia
July 3, 2025

The London-based Guardian revealed that the Israeli occupation army used heavy and indiscriminate munitions in the bombing of the Al-Baqa café overlooking the Gaza City beach, Monday evening, killing dozens of civilians. This incident could be classified as a war crime under international law.

According to an analysis of photographs from the attack site conducted by the newspaper, munitions experts confirmed that the shrapnel found at the site belonged to an American MK-82 bomb, a multi-purpose bomb weighing approximately 230 kilograms and producing a massive blast wave with a wide dispersal of shrapnel.

The newspaper added that the use of this type of munition in a densely-populated civilian area, such as the seaside café, “reflects a disproportionate use of force and raises serious legal and ethical questions about the intent and nature of the attack.”

Medicine sources in Gaza, however, reported that the initial toll from the attack was at least 39 dead and more than 100 wounded in less than an hour. The director of Al-Shifa Medical Complex in Gaza said, “The health situation is completely out of control, and we are forced to differentiate between the wounded according to the severity of their conditions.”

He explained that most of those injured in the bombing are critically injured, stressing that basic medical supplies are running out and that health facilities are close to running out of fuel, threatening to shut them down within hours.

The attack on the Al-Baqaa café comes within the context of an ongoing Israeli escalation in the Gaza Strip, amid growing international condemnation of the repeated targeting of civilians and the use of heavy weapons in densely populated areas.

Since 7 October, 2023, the occupying forces, with full American support, have continued to commit crimes of genocide in Gaza, leaving more than 191,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced as reported in Quds Press.

Opinion

What to Do About Hamas?

Dr Khairi Janbek
July 3, 2025

By Dr Khairi Janbek

The avowed declared intention of Benjamin Netanyahu, remains the destruction of Hamas, as he repeatedly says that the war against Hamas will not stop until it is totally disarmed and there will no more ‘Hamastan’.

This is while on the other side of the world is President Trump who is very much interested in a ceasefire and the release of the remaining hostages while blowing hot and cold in his habitual manner of ambiguity regarding the future of of the Islamic organization.

This may cause a divergence of views between Netanyahu and Trump in their up coming discussions, despite the fact that Trump went the extra mile as he threatened to withhold aid to Israel if Netanyahu is taken to court whilst Netanyahu responded by returning the compliment, saying that a couple-of-months ceasefire and the release of the living hostages as well as the dead bodies, are not mutually exclusive with the ultimate aim of destroying Hamas.

Admittedly, one always had one’s own doubts about the destruction of Hamas, probably because one always believed that the objectives of Israel’s foreign policy is to have a weakened PNA by Hamas and Hamas weakened by the PNA, which meant that neither should be destroyed, rather, to be weakened as circumstances required.

However, having said that, the most recent menacing Israeli government voices are talking about more dangerous developments, the first being taking control of the West Bank, which basically means either the end of the PNA or merely becoming an Israeli Bantustan administration, rendering the concept, let alone the fact, of a Palestinian state superfluous.

While the other development, is the call for Gaza , with or without Hamas, to be under a future Arab administration. Now which Arabs are going to be part of this administration is still unclear, but certainly the implications are clear, basically the financing of reconstruction which requires wealthy Arab participation, by default a participation of normalizing Arabs with Israel, with enough muscle to keep Hamas at bay, armed or otherwise.

In any case something may well be hammered in Washington when Trump meets Netanyahu, and the Arabs are bound to know its consequences.

Dr Janbek is a Jordanian writer based in Paris

News

‘No More Spaces to Bury Our Dead’ – Gaza

CrossFireArabia
July 3, 2025

Graves are running out in Gaza. The Ministry of Endowments and Religious Affairs in Gaza announced, Wednesday evening, that graves have run out in most areas of the Strip. It added this is amidst the escalating genocide carried out by Israel over the past 22 months and the rising number of people that are being killed.

The systematic targeting of civilians and the ongoing genocide is resulting in the depletion of graves in most areas of the Gaza Strip, the Ministry stated, explaining that the Israeli army completely or partially destroyed more than 40 grave sites across the Strip since October 2023.

The ministry stated the Israeli army prevents Palestinians from “accessing cemeteries located within its security and military control, which has led to a reduction in burial spaces, the depletion of existing cemeteries, and the exacerbation of the severe shortage of graves for burying martyrs and the dead.”

It explained that this comes at a time when the Israeli army is preventing “the entry of shrouds, building materials, and materials necessary for preparing graves, which prevents the burial of martyrs in accordance with Sharia regulations.”

In addition, Israeli evacuation orders have reduced the available land for burials, transforming it into a shelter for displaced Palestinians, according to the statement.

Consequently, the statement noted the accumulation of bodies of “martyrs” in hospitals and their courtyards, while schoolyards and homes have been converted into emergency burial sites.

It noted that with the worsening grave availability crisis in Gaza, the cost of preparing a single grave has increased from 700-1,000 shekels (one dollar equals 3.37 shekels), “burdening the families of the martyrs.”

The ministry is appealing to Arab and Islamic countries and entrepreneurs to support the “Ikram Campaign” it recently announced, to build free graves to honor the martyrs.

It also called on local and international relief organizations and entrepreneurs “to urgently intervene to provide relief to the families of the martyrs, work to build free graves, and provide urgent burial supplies, including shrouds, building materials, and burial equipment.”

Almost daily, activists circulate images on social media of the dead piling up in hospital courtyards as the death toll rises due to the escalating genocide.

Palestinians complain about the lack of graves to bury their “martyred” relatives, while some resort to opening old graves to bury additional bodies inside.

Since October 7, 2023, Israel has waged a genocidal war in Gaza, including killing, starvation, destruction, and forced displacement, ignoring all international calls and orders from the International Court of Justice to halt it.

The genocide, with American support, has left approximately 191,000 Palestinians dead or wounded, most of them children and women, and more than 11,000 missing, in addition to hundreds of thousands displaced and a famine that has claimed the lives of many, including children as reported by Anadolu.

Uncategorized

Weaponizing Food in Gaza

CrossFireArabia
July 2, 2025

More than 130 international governmental agencies have issued a demand for the immediate end of the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the deadly US-Israeli mechanism for delivering food to starving Gaza. They called for a return to the Israel disrupted United Nations-led system which, combined international aid agencies with commercial supplies to serve the strip’s families who are struggling to survive Israel’s bombs, military ground offensive, and forced displacement.

It is impossible to see why an anti-humanitarian enterprise such as the GHF should, instead, attract $30 million in funding from the US which claims to be the global exemplar of morality and integrity. The GHF demonstrates, once again, that this is far from the truth. Since May 27, when GHF began operations, more than 550 people have been killed and over 4,000 wounded among the desperate thousands waiting for the delivery of food parcels at one or other of the four hubs, three in the south and one near the centre. UN relief agency UNRWA condemns GHF for being a vehicle for “weaponising” food aid.

GHF officials deny this accusation and dismiss reports of Israeli shootings and drone and tank attacks against Palestinians approaching militarised GHF hub zones. While killings of Palestinians have been reliably reported since day one, the US and Israel, which co-sponsor GHF, had shrugged off these reports until last week.

Israeli liberal daily Haaretz published statements from anonymous Israeli soldiers deployed near the hubs. According to Haaretz, Israeli officers and soldiers were ordered to fire on Palestinians “when no threat was present.” One soldier told Haaretz, “It’s a killing field. Where I was stationed between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force – no crowd control measures, no tear gas – just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. .. Our form of communication is gunfire.” He added, “I’m not aware if a single instance of return fire. There is no enemy, no weapons.” There have been no Israeli casualties during distributions is proof positive of what he said.

Until Haaretz published its interviews, the Israeli military claimed falsely that troops fired in the air when Palestinians approached them. In response to the Haaretz reports, the military prosecutor demanded an investigation into possible war crimes. Israeli human rights organisations Yesh Din and B’Tselem have pointed out for decades that military investigations are rarely launched and even more rarely result in prosecutions of Israeli officers or soldiers. Consequently, the military enjoys impunity and continues to act with impunity.

The modus operandi of GHF centres also contributes to chaos and Palestinian deaths. Aid seekers are not informed which of the centres will open. Times vary for distributions which can last one hour or until all the prepacked parcels disappear. Palestinians have to turn up many hours early – usually in the dead of night – to reach the distribution centres. Those who succeed have been on the scene first. Most are fit young men who can survive the wait and the scrum which always eventuates the minute the distributions begin. Women, children and the elderly face exclusion, bullets or trampling.

The parcels, which contain rations, hygiene kits, and simple medicines, can weigh 40 kilograms and cannot be easily transported by one person. The bulky cardboard boxes often break, spilling their contents onto the ground. Fights ensue. Palestinians carry plastic bags when going to collect aid in order to return home with something if not an entire package. When a distribution ends, grenades emitting red smoke are fired by the Israeli army to order Palestinians to evacuate the area immediately.

Medecins San Frontiers/Doctors Without Borders has said GHF “must be dismantled.” It is “forcing Palestinians “to choose between starvation or risking their lives for minimal supplies.” MSF said, “Every day [its] teams see patients who been killed or wounded trying to get food at one of these sites.” MSF called on Israel to “lift the siege on food, fuel, medical and humanitarian supplies.”

The UN has refused to cooperate with GHF, after expressing doubts about its neutrality, accusing it of militarising relief and of contributing to the displacement of civilians, particularly those from the north who must travel long distances in the sweltering heat to access existential aid.

Before Israel imposed its March 2nd blockade on Gaza, the UNRWA, the UN children’s fund, and the World Food Programme had provided Gaza’s 2.3 million residents with their needs via 400 (not 4) distribution mechanisms where Palestinians had registered. They were notified by text or call when to collect their aid. There were no desperate crowds forming hours before aid distributions, no scrambles to receive parcels, and no Israeli shooters or tank commanders to fire on recipients. Food was treated as a right and its distribution did not cost lives or involve the Israeli military.

Michael Jansen contributed this piece to The Jordan Times