Palestinian
Holocaust
Excerpts
from my new book in progress
“We all know the old cliché about the
first casualty in war being truth. The powerful and their propagandists need
not be smart creatures, only talented—in the same way a serial killer is
talented. Talent in making black appear white, a grim picture rosy, a cruel
policy necessary.”
“There is a word, better than the
ubiquitous genocide to distill the monstrous totality of what is underway
in the north of Gaza, and the clarity of the
mission: extermination. And this rampage might be the first example
of a modern war where its butchers tell you what they’re doing while
they’re doing it. What is happening there? asks Moshe Ya’alon, former
chief of the Israel Defense Forces, referring to Gaza’s northernmost towns. The
army is essentially cleansing the area of Arabs. Starting in early October,
the enclave was sealed. No aid allowed in, only people allowed out. Not for the
first time were Palestinians, some 200,000 of them, commanded to leave. Their
exodus—to where? No place is safe—became a death march, as they were exposed
above to the bomber pilots and operators of drones; Salah Al Din Road was and
is a shooting gallery. Into November the air campaign thumped on. Hospitals
were blasted repeatedly. Individual strikes killed 20, 30, 80 people at a
time. On October 29, in the suburb of Beit Lahia, bombs flattened a
five-story apartment block, burying under it 93 Palestinians. Perhaps as many
as 75,000 people remain in this closing circle. Every last one of them,
according to the Israeli army, is a fair target.”
Snippets from The New York Times, UN
report of abuse in Israeli detention, savagery behind the scenes, which are
worthy of awakening empathy, if not opening a window of global
conscience. “Palestinian detainees were made to sit on their knees
for hours with their hands tied, while blindfolded, deprived of food and water.
Being urinated on, badly beaten with metal bars, forced into cages and attacked
by dogs. Detainees were also made to lie on thin mattresses on top of rubble
for hours without food, water or access to toilet, with their legs and hands
bound with plastic ties. One woman was threatened by Israeli officers that her
whole family would be killed in an airstrike if she didn’t provide more
information. One man was forced to sit on an electrical probe that burned his
anus. Some Gazans were beaten on their genitals, aggressively searched and
sexually groped. One woman was forced to strip in front of male officers. Some
of UNRWA staff members were beaten, stripped, humiliated and abused while being
detained by Israeli authorities. During interrogations, they were pressured to
say that UNRWA had affiliations with Hamas and that its staff members took part
in the Oct. 7 attack.”
Netanyahu’s Most Recent Atrocities after
striking Kamal Adwan Hospital
December 28, 2024
“There was no limit to the beating. They struck people
on the head with hoses. They dragged three people at a time, including an
injured person with a cast, and beat them on their heads,” added Rayan. “They
spared no one—not the injured, not the elderly, not the children.”
“War required a skill for euphemism of the kind
Netanyahu displayed when he said back in January that “Israel has no
intention of permanently occupying Gaza or displacing its civilian population.”
After Human Rights Watch, in a long mid-November report, starkly accused the
Israeli government of causing the “mass and forced displacement of the majority
of the civilian population, a widespread and systematic policy that amounts to
a crime against humanity,” the Israeli foreign ministry’s spokesperson Oren
Marmorstein replied, “Israel’s efforts are directed solely at dismantling
Hamas’s terror capabilities.” Sometimes the fables were so blatant you did not
know whether to laugh bitterly or shiver.”
“Yet for every hard question dodged and every
accusation smoothed over, there is someone like Eiland or Dichter to state the
obvious. And what is the obvious? What are they doing? Gaza is the zone where
the super technological is used to inflict on an undeserving mass a primitive
form of life. Bare life. This is the latest frontier of elegantly computerized
mass killing: a new way to carry out an old sin. The prestige of their machines
is at stake: AI and algorithms, night-piercing radar, mass surveillance, the
avionics of an F-35 jet. Can the killing be done fast enough? Trillions of
dollars spent to design, build, arm, and operate a fleet of devices so that for
every mother killed in Gaza, six children die with her, in her apartment, in
her tent, on their street. The gleam of military might deployed for the
vaporizing of families waving white flags and bearing all their worldly goods
on their backs.
Palestinian
Holocaust
Chapter
One
Netanyahu
Genocide in Gaza, Rafah
This
book chronicles the chronology of atrocities committed by Netanyahu, captured
in snippets from news, media, articles and analysis.
Ancient
history records Israel as a mythical state torn out of the pages of Biblical
Exodus. In modern history it is carved out of Palestine by Imperial British,
gifted to Israelis when they evacuated Palestine Year 1948, ending their hold
of Divide and Rule.
Key events since the October 7, 2023,
attack.
Oct. 7, 2023: Hamas
launched an attack on Israel during the Jewish holiday of Simchat Torah — the
deadliest attack against Jewish people since the Holocaust. Over 1,100 people were
killed and about 250 were taken hostage.
Oct. 8, 2023: Israel declared
war against Hamas. A counterattack by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip,
one of two Palestinian territories, killed more than 400 people, including 78
children.
Oct. 9, 2023: Israel
ordered a complete siege of Gaza, which was home to more than 2 million
Palestinians.
Oct. 20, 2023: An
American mother and daughter who were taken hostage by Hamas were released to
IDF.
Oct. 27, 2023: Israel
launched ground invasion into Palestinian territory. The United Nations General
Assembly voted for a resolution, calling for an immediate truce — the U.S. voted
against it.
Nov. 6, 2023: Gaza
health ministry said more than 10,000 Palestinians had been killed in the
first month of the war.
Nov. 24, 2023: Israel
and Hamas called for a temporary ceasefire to exchange hostages and prisoners.
Hamas released more than 100 Israeli hostages and Israel released 240
Palestinians being held as prisoners. The truce only lasted for one week.
Dec. 4, 2023: Israeli
forces pushed into southern Gaza, claiming that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who was
credited with planning the Oct. 7 attack, was hiding in the area.
Dec. 22, 2023: More than 20,000
Palestinians had been killed, according to local officials.
Dec. 28, 2023: The
U.N. condemned the “rapidly deteriorating human rights situation in
the occupied West Bank.”
Jan. 26, 2024: The
U.N. International Court of Justice told Israel to do more to prevent more
Palestinian civilians from being harmed or killed in Gaza.
Feb. 23, 2024: Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released postwar plans, which included
Israel having indefinite military control of Gaza and the southern border.
Feb. 29, 2024: More
than 30,000 Palestinians were reported killed.
April 1, 2024: Seven
humanitarian aid workers with World Central Kitchen, founded by
celebrity chef José Andrés, were killed in Gaza by an Israeli airstrike.
April-May: Columbia
University initiated a national wave of student protests on college
campuses throughout the U.S.
May 7, 2024: The
Israeli army launched a ground attack in Rafah, the southernmost city in Gaza,
where a majority of Gazan citizens had relocated to find shelter.
The Rafah Crossing, which connects Gaza
and Egypt, is one of the few border areas not controlled by Israel and allows
for aid to come into the territory.
June 8, 2024: At
least four Israeli hostages are rescued.
July 24, 2024: Netanyahu
addressed Congress, pledging a “total victory” against Hamas. During his U.S.
trip, Netanyahu met with President Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris and
former President Donald Trump.
Aug. 6, 2024: Israel
announced that the remains of the last missing person from the Oct. 7
attacks had been found.
Aug. 13, 2024: The
U.S. approved $20 billion in weapons sales to Israel.
Aug. 15, 2024: More
than 40,000 Palestinians had been killed.
Aug. 18, 2024: Hamas
rejected the newest U.S. proposal for a Gaza hostage and ceasefire deal,
saying, “Netanyahu is still putting obstacles in the way of reaching an
agreement, and is setting new conditions and demands with the aim of
undermining the mediators' efforts and prolonging the war.”
Aug. 20, 2024: Protesters
advocating for a ceasefire between Israelis and Palestinians, were
arrested outside of the Democratic National Convention.
Aug. 27, 2024: Israeli
forces rescued a 52-year-old hostage from Hamas.
Aug. 31, 2024: At
least six Israeli hostages were found dead in a tunnel under Rafah,
including Israeli American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents spoke at the
Democratic National Convention.
Sept. 30, 2024: Israel
invaded Lebanon targeting the Hezbollah, making it Israel’s sixth invasion of
Lebanon in 50 years. Hezbollah claimed it was attacking Israel on behalf of the
people in Gaza.
Oct. 4, 2024: Israel
launched its deadliest airstrike attack on the West Bank, another
Palestinian territory.
Israel's retaliatory offensive had destroyed much of
the Gaza Strip and killed more than 42,000 Palestinians. The Gaza Health
Ministry did not distinguish between civilians and combatants but said more
than half of those killed were women and children.
The U.S. had been working with fellow mediators Egypt
and Qatar on a cease-fire proposal since the war began a year ago, sending
Blinken and other envoys to the Middle East multiple times to try to broker a
deal without success.
Last month, on Blinken’s 10th trip to the region since
the war in Gaza began, he skipped Israel and withheld optimistic
projections of a breakthrough.
At least 15 killed in strike on former
school in Gaza
In other news from the Gaza conflict, at least 15
people were killed in an Israeli strike on a former school building in northern
Gaza, a spokesman for the Kamal Adwan hospital said on Thursday.
More than 42,400 people were said to have been killed
in Israel's campaign in Gaza following the October 7 attacks last year,
according to the Hamas-run authorities, and close to 100,000 injured.
|
October 14, 2024
Warning:
Graphic descriptions of death and injury
“There is no conscience. There is no
humanity. There are only leaders who watch and do not act”.
That was what Ahmed al-Dalou believed, as the images
of his family burning replayed in his mind. He said his life was gone. It died
in the inferno of al-Aqsa compound with his boys and wife in the early hours of
Monday 14 October.
In front of him on the ground was a shroud, wrapped
around the body of Abdulrahman,12, his youngest son.
The child lingered in agony for four days after the
fire. The day before he died Ahmed saw him in hospital and he was able to tell
his father: “Don’t be worried, I am OK dad. I’m fine. Don’t be afraid.”
Ahmed was half speaking, half crying, as he talked of
what had been taken from him.
“Three times I tried to pull Abdulrahman out of the
fire, but his body fell back into it.”
His older brother, Sha'aban, 19, and his mother, Alaa,
37, both died on the night of the fire.
Sha'aban became a new symbol of Gaza’s terrible
suffering. Images of him writhing in agony as he was burned to death in the
family’s tent, were shared around the world on social media.
There were burns all over Ahmed’s face and hands. The
tone of his voice was high, a keening sound. Of the anonymous pilot who sent
the missile, and the leaders who gave him orders, Ahmed said: “They broke my
heart, and they broke my spirit. I wish the fire had burned me.”
The strike happened at about 01:15 local time last
Monday.
Four people were killed immediately and dozens more
wounded, including many with severe burn injuries.
A spokesperson for the White House told CBS News, the
BBC's US partner, that footage of the fire was “deeply disturbing” and called
on Israel to do more to protect civilians.
“Israel has a responsibility to do more to avoid
civilian casualties, and what happened here is horrifying, even if Hamas was
operating near the hospital in an attempt to use civilians as human shields.”
The US and other powers, including Britain, had
expressed concern about civilian casualties since the early stages of the war.
People were burned to death, blown to pieces, and shot
every day in this war.
Most of the time the death agonies happened away from
the cameras. It was the frantic search for survivors in the rubble, the
dramatic scenes at hospitals, the endless stream of funerals, that were
captured by cameras.
But the death of Sha'aban al-Dalou was different. His
hand could be seen, reaching out of the inferno, a figure wrapped in flame,
writhing and beyond the reach of any help.
In the days following his death Sha'aban’s own videos
and photographs emerged. He was a typical teenager of his generation, aware of
the power of social media, adept at recording his daily life.
The burning figure from the night of fire appeared to
the world as an articulate, intelligent teenager, a software engineering
student, a young man who took care of his family, planning for a new life
outside Gaza. He filmed himself donating blood and encouraged others to do the
same.
“We saw so many injuries, many children are in dire
need of blood. All we demand is for a ceasefire and this tragedy to end.”
We were only able to tell the story of al-Dalou family
because of our own local journalist who went to meet the survivors.
International journalists from media organizations, including the BBC, were not
given independent access to Gaza by Israel.
In a video recorded in the tent where he died Sha'aban
described how his family had been displaced five times since the war began a
year ago. He had two sisters, and two younger brothers.
“We live in very hard circumstances,” he said. “We
suffer from various things such as homelessness, limited food, and extremely
limited medicine.”
In the background, as he spoke, there was the loud
mechanical hum of an Israeli observation drone, a constant in the daily and
nightly soundtrack of Gaza.
The surviving brother of Sha'aban and Abdulrahman,
Mohammed al-Dalou, told the BBC that he had tried to go into the flames to
rescue his older brother.
But other injured people had held him back, fearing he
too would be killed. Mohammed did not sleep in the family tent, but outside on
the street where he kept watch over their piled belongings.
“I was screaming for someone to let me go, but in vain.
My brother’s leg was trapped and he couldn’t free himself. I think you saw it
in the video. He was raising his hand.”
"That was my brother. He was my support in this
world.”
Sha'aban would come and wake him for prayers in the
morning with a bottle of water and he would tell him: “I’ll work for you.”
Mohammed recalled how the brothers set up a stall at
the gates of the hospital selling food that the family made.
“We managed everything with our hard work. Everything
we had was from our effort. We would get food and drink, then everything was
lost.”
He saw the burned bodies, but could only identify his
mother. Although her remains had been mutilated by fire, he recognized a
distinctive bracelet.
“Without it, I wouldn’t have known she was my mother.
Her hand was detached from her body, but the bracelet was still on it. I took
it off her hand.”
“This is his only memento of the woman who was the
kindness in our home".
The al-Dalou family was in shock. The survivors mourned
the dead. Our BBC colleague asked Mohammed about the psychological cost of
seeing his loved ones die.
“I can’t describe it. I can’t describe how I felt. I
want to explain it to people, but I can’t. I can’t describe it. I saw my
brother burning in front of me, and my mother too.”
Then, as if he was posing a question on behalf of the
dead, he asked: “What more do you need, and you stay silent? You see us
burning, and you stay silent.”
CBS News met kids in Gaza and Lebanon
scarred for life by Israeli bombs
Beirut and Gaza —
Displaced Palestinians in a tent camp outside the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in
central Gaza woke up in the early morning hours Tuesday to a blazing
inferno after an Israeli airstrike. The flames spreading quickly from tent to
tent. Civilians who'd sought shelter in the camp said there was only one fire
extinguisher to try to quash the blaze.
Residents and rescue workers scrambled to rescue
people from the flames, but they could not save Shaaban Al-Dalou, who was
burned alive.
His father Ahmed Al-Dalou also suffered agonizing
burns, but it's guilt that was eating him alive when CBS News met him on
Wednesday, several days after the strike.
Al-Dalou said that as flames tore through the camp, he
found himself faced with an impossible choice.
"I woke up to go to the toilet and when I came
back to bed, the sound of warplanes was loud," he said.
He raced to find his family, but "I didn't know
who I should try to save."
"I saw Shaaban sitting up and, although he was on
fire, I thought he could get up and run, so I rushed to rescue my youngest
children. I thought everyone was safe."
Al-Dalou managed to pull his younger son Abdul Rahman
and his sister Rahaf to safety, but both Shaaban, who would have turned 20 on
Wednesday, and his mother were killed in the fire.
"Today is Shaaban's birthday," the grieving
father told CBS News. "He is celebrating his birthday with his mother in
heaven."
Al-Dalou's other children were being treated for
severe burns in a Gaza hospital ill equipped to handle the overwhelming
casualty count.
Every day, more burnt victims, young and old, came
through the doors of hospitals across the Palestinian territory.
Layaan Hamadeen, 13, was among them. She was trying to
get food for her family when she was severely injured in another recent Israeli
strike. From her hospital bed, she told CBS News that she just wanted to be a
teenage girl again.
"I want the war to end," she said. "I
want to wear beautiful clothes and have beautiful hair again and I long for
healthy food like apples and mangos."
On Israel's second front, in its war with Hamas’
allies Hezbollah in Lebanon, the death toll was also rising. Israeli jets
continued to pound southern Lebanon and, despite the U.S. voicing concern over
the bombing campaign in the capital city of Beirut, there was a fresh series of
strikes around the capital Wednesday.
The Israeli military had vowed to keep striking
Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon, and it said it only targeted the group's
weapons and fighters, but the Lebanese health ministry said the strikes had
killed more than 2,300 people over the last month or so, wounded some 11,000
more, and forced hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes.
CBS News visited the only Lebanese hospital with a
full burn unit this week, and found it had tripled its usual number of beds to
cope with the number the casualties coming in.
Like many youngsters, 11-year-old Hamoodi seemed
unable to tear his eyes away from his phone. It was helping take his mind off
the burn wounds covering one side of his body.
Hamoodi, 11, looked at his phone in a bed at the
Lebanese Geitaoui Hospital in Beirut, Oct. 14, 2024, where he was being treated
for burns covering one side of his body, sustained in an Israeli airstrike: CBS
News
The phone was also his only connection to his mother,
who was being treated in another hospital. They were both injured in an Israeli
airstrike. As he sat there scrolling, Hamoodi still didn't know that his father
and brother were killed in the attack.
His aunt Jamal Ibrahim said he was asking for them,
but she was worried the news could be too much for the boy to bear.
The war's youngest victims were particularly difficult
for Nurse Ali Humaida.
"It's terrible to see children in pain," he
said, "especially when there isn't much we can do."
“Already, tiny Yvana, just 21 months old, has learned
to dread the men and women in blue scrubs.”
Yvana Zayoun, just 21 months old, laid in a bed at the
Lebanese Hospital Geitaoui in Beirut, Oct. 14, 2024, where she was being
treated for burns to virtually her entire body, sustained in an Israeli
airstrike that hit her home: CBS News
She was wrapped in bandages that covered severe burns,
from head to toe. The slightest touch was excruciating, but the bandages had to
be changed regularly.
Her mother Fatima Zayoun told CBS News their house was
hit by a rocket more than three weeks ago.
"I saw my daughter on fire," she said.
The mother had been inconsolable since that day.
CBS News correspondent Debora Patta spoke with Fatima
Zayoun, as her young daughter Yvana Zayoun laid in a bed at the Lebanese
Hospital Geitaoui in Beirut, Oct. 14, 2024, where she was being treated for
severe burns sustained in an Israeli airstrike: CBS News
"I don't care about anything," she said.
"I just want her to get better."
ZOUK MOSBEH, Lebanon — The Israeli military hit bank
branches across Lebanon overnight to target Hezbollah’s finances, expanding its
offensive in an assault that sparked panic as the United States launched a
new push for a diplomatic solution to the intensifying regional conflict.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken was set to travel to
the Middle East on Monday for a trip that would focus on talks to end the U.S.
ally’s conflict with Iran-backed militant groups in Lebanon and Gaza after the
killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar and amid mounting outrage over
Israel's deadly renewed assault on the north of the Palestinian enclave, where
the United Nations said life had been made "impossible."
But it also came as Israel prepared an attack against
Iran itself.
An advanced anti-missile system sent by the
US. was now in place in Israel, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said early
Monday, boosting its defenses while the U.S. was investigating an apparent leak
of top-secret documents showing American spy agencies tracking possible Israeli
preparations for the strike.
October 17, 2024
The Israeli military claimed it killed top Hamas
leader Yahya Sinwar during a military operation in the southern Gaza Strip on
Wednesday.
Sinwar had been credited with being the mastermind
behind the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, during which over 1,100 people
were killed and 250 were taken hostage.
Sinwar’s death was the most significant assassination
of a Hamas official since Mohammed Deig, the group’s military leader, and
Ismail Haniyeh, Hamas’s political leader, were both killed in July.
President Biden called it a "good day for Israel,
for the United States, and for the world" now that Sinwar was dead, saying
in a statement that the Hamas leader "was responsible for the deaths of
thousands of Israelis, Palestinians, Americans, and citizens from over 30
countries." He compared his death to what Americans felt after al-Qaida
leader Osama bin Laden was killed in 2011.
Vice President Kamala Harris told reporters that
Sinwar "had American blood on his hands" and "justice has been
served."
After speaking to Netanyahu, Biden told reporters:
"Now's the time to move on. Move on, towards a ceasefire in Gaza, make
sure that we are moving in a direction that we're going to be able to make
things better for the whole world."
During a campaign event in Milwaukee, Harris said,
"This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza."
While Egypt and Qatar had brokered several
ceasefire negotiations between Israel and Hamas in the last year, nothing had
come to fruition to end the war.
Over the last year, more than 42,000 Palestinians —
including over 16,000 children — had been killed, according to the Hamas-run
Gaza Health Ministry, as reported by Human Rights Watch. More than 10,000
Palestinians were considered missing. In the West Bank, at least 723
Palestinians had been killed. More than 127 journalists and media workers
had been killed, according to the committee designed to Protect
Journalists.
October 19, 2024
Smoke rose from an Israeli airstrike on Dahiyeh, in
the southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon.
Israel's military said dozens of projectiles were
launched from Lebanon a day after Hezbollah announced a new phase in
fighting. Netanyahu’s office said the drone targeted his house in the
Mediterranean coastal town of Caesarea. Neither he nor his wife was there. It
wasn't clear if the house was hit.
“The proxies of Iran who today tried to assassinate me
and my wife made a bitter mistake,” Netanyahu said.
Hezbollah didn't claim responsibility but said it
carried out several rocket attacks on Israel. The barrage came as Israel was
expected to respond to an attack earlier that month by Iran.
Israel in turn carried out at least 10 airstrikes on
Beirut's southern suburbs known as Dahiyeh, a heavily populated area home to
Hezbollah's offices, Lebanese authorities said. Israel’s military said it
struck Hezbollah targets.
The U.S. defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, called
civilian casualties in Lebanon “far too high” in the intensifying
Israel-Hezbollah War and urged Israel to scale back some strikes, especially in
and around Beirut.
In Gaza, Israeli forces fired at hospitals in the
Palestinian enclave's battered north, and strikes killed more than 50 people,
including children, in less than 24 hours, according to hospital officials and
an Associated Press reporter there.
“The possibility of war in the region remained a
serious concern,” Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said while visiting
Turkey. Group of Seven defense ministers warned against escalation and “all-out
war.”
New exchange of airstrikes.
Israel’s military said about 200 projectiles were
fired from Lebanon, a day after Hezbollah said it planned to send more guided
missiles and exploding drones. The militant group’s longtime leader, Hassan
Nasrallah, was killed in an Israeli airstrike in September, and
Israel sent ground troops into Lebanon.
Lebanon’s state-run National News Agency said an
Israeli airstrike on an apartment in eastern Baaloul village killed five
people, including the mayor of nearby Sohmor village. An Israeli military
official confirmed that the IDF struck targets in the Bekaa Valley.
Lebanon’s health ministry said an Israeli airstrike
hit a vehicle on a highway north of Beirut, killing two people. Israel said it
killed Hezbollah’s deputy commander in the southern town of Bint Jbeil. The
army said Nasser Rashid supervised attacks against Israel.
Israel had issued near-daily warnings for people to
leave buildings and villages in parts of Lebanon. The fighting had displaced
more than 1 million people, including around 400,000 children.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive in Gaza had
killed more than 42,000 Palestinians, according to local health authorities,
who didn’t distinguish combatants from civilians but said more than half the
dead were women and children.
More strikes pounded Gaza on Saturday, and Palestinian
communications company Paltel said they knocked out internet networks in the
north.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said Israeli strikes
hit the upper floors of the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahiya, and forces
opened fire at it, causing panic. The U.N. said two patients died due to a
power outage and lack of supplies in recent days.
Israel's military said it was operating near the
hospital and “there was no intentional fire directed at it.”
The military also said it was looking into the matter
after Al-Awda hospital in Jabaliya, northern Gaza, said strikes hit the top
floors, wounding several staff members. It later said the military hit its
ambulances and courtyard, wounding four people, including a medic.
Three houses in Jabaliya were struck overnight,
killing at least 30 people, more than half women and children, said Fares Abu
Hamza, head of the health ministry’s ambulance and emergency service. At least
80 were wounded.
Palestinian residents said Israel’s military was
forcing hundreds of displaced people to leave Jabaliya and head to Gaza City.
“The occupation evicted us at gunpoint,” said Umm
Sayed, a mother of three. “Tanks and heavy armed forces were encircling us.”
She said many young men were taken apparently for interrogation, and most were
later released.
Israel’s military described it as an evacuation and
said it detained militants for questioning.
A U.N. school sheltering displaced people west of Gaza
City was hit, killing several people, according to the Hamas-run civil defense
first responders.
“What is this? There is a clinic and there are
children,” said Bashir Haddad, a displaced person there, according to AP video.
A boy collected body parts on a piece of cardboard.
Elsewhere in central Gaza, at least 10 people were
killed, including two children, when a house was hit in the town of Zawayda,
according to the al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah. Another strike
killed 11 people from the same family in the Maghazi refugee camp, the hospital
said.
PARIS AP — Reuters photographer Mohammed Salem
captured that year’s prestigious World Press Photo of the Year award Thursday
with a depiction of loss and sorrow in Gaza, a heartrending photo of a
Palestinian woman cradling the body of her young niece. The photograph, taken
in Khan Younis just days after Salem’s own child was born, showed 36-year-old
Inas Abu Maamar holding five-year-old Saly, who was killed along with her
mother and sister when an Israeli missile struck their home.
The war had destroyed vast swaths of Gaza, displaced
about 90% of its population of 2.3 million people, and left them struggling to
find food, water, medicine and fuel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sounded
defiant as he vowed that his country would "win this war" after an
attack drone reportedly crashed near a home he owned in the Israeli coastal
town of Caesarea.
An Israeli government spokesman accused the Lebanese
militant group Hezbollah of launching the drone and targeting the Israeli
leader. The home is one of Netanyahu's private residences, while his
official residence is in Jerusalem.
The spokesman told dpa that neither Netanyahu nor his
wife were at the residence at the time of the attack, without providing further
details on the exact location of the strike.
Bloody fighting involving Israeli forces as well as
Israeli airstrikes continued in both Lebanon and the Gaza Strip on Saturday.
The Israeli military said numerous Hezbollah fighters were killed in southern
Lebanon, while numerous airstrikes shook the suburbs of Beirut.
The fighting was continuing despite hopes expressed by
some world leaders in recent days that Israel's recent killing of Yehya
al-Sinwar, the leader of the Palestinian militant group Hamas, could be used as
an opportunity to pressure Israel and Hamas to finally end the devastating
conflict in Gaza.
Over the past few months, Israeli forces also killed
al-Sinwar's predecessor as Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, and the long-time head
of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah.
Airstrikes around Beirut, fighting in
Lebanon
The Lebanese news agency NNA reported that the Beirut
suburb of Haret Hreik was hit by a series of airstrikes, with images showing
large clouds of smoke rising from the densely populated area.
An Israeli military spokesman had previously called on
the residents of Haret Hreik to flee the area.
Haret Hreik is part of Beirut's southern
suburbs, known as Dahiyeh, which have historically been a stronghold of the
Shiite Hezbollah militia. The adjacent neighborhood of Bourj
al-Barajneh and the city of Shuwayfat were also reportedly shaken by
explosions.
Israel last attacked the neighborhood three days ago.
Many of the residents of the densely populated residential area had already
fled from Israeli strikes.
Further Israeli airstrikes across Lebanon, including
in a mainly Christian northern suburb of Beirut that had not previously been
targeted left a number of others dead, according to Lebanese reports.
Continuation of Fighting in Gaza
In the Gaza Strip, there was fierce fighting in both
the southern city of Rafah and in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza,
according to both the IDF and Palestinian reports.
The Palestinian news agency WAFA reported on Saturday
at least 30 dead and at least 50 injured in Jabalia due to Israeli attacks
overnight. Palestinian sources said that all three hospitals there had been
forced to cease operations by the latest attacks.
Israeli tanks had also taken up positions around the
Indonesian Hospital, added Munir al-Borsh from the Gaza Ministry of Health,
which was controlled by Hamas.
The IDF said Israeli troops killed several
"terrorists" in operations in both Jabalia and Rafah.
Since the Gaza war began more than a year ago, over
42,000 people had already been killed, according to Palestinian sources.
These figures, which couldn’t be independently
verified, were considered largely credible, and according to the United
Nations, most of the deceased were women and children.
Conditions for civilians still holding out in Jabalia were
appalling, reports said. The dead and injured often couldn’t be retrieved for a
long time due to the fighting. In addition, there were hardly any food or clean
drinking water left.
Wishing
Whole world a Happy, Healthy, Harmonious New Year
