Transcription
Here is a summary of some of the latest developments in Gaza and the West Bank, and we'll share some reportage highlights from the electronic Indfas contributors there.
Early Tuesday morning, while families were sleeping, Israel bombed the massive encampment in the sand dunes of Almasi in Khan Younis, designated by Israel as a so-called safe zone or humanitarian area, with a series of airstrikes killing at least 40 and injuring dozens more. Rescuers, including Palestinian Civil Defense, search for survivors of the attack, digging through the sand with their bare hands. Witnesses told Al Jazeera that fires were burning and Israeli surveillance drones circled overhead while people searched for any sign of their loved ones. The heavy Israeli bombs, made in the United States and enthusiastically delivered by the Biden-Harris administration, obliterated at least 22 out of the 40 people killed so completely that their bodies were not even recoverable. Tents melted into the sand, leaving craters in the dunes up to 30 feet deep.
A spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defense Corps said that initial assessments suggest that the attack was "one of the worst heinous massacres in this frenzied war." The spokesperson added that it was extremely difficult retrieving the bodies of people killed in the massacre. Israel claimed that Hamas had set up a command center in the encampment for displaced people. In a statement on Tuesday, Hamas flatly rejected Israel's claims. The political party stated, "This is a clear lie that aims to justify these ugly crimes." The resistance has denied several times that any of its members exist within civilian gatherings or using these places for military purposes. Videos showed displaced Palestinians who survived the massacre on Tuesday reconstructing tents out of wood, plastic, and cloth.
Later in the day, our senior editor, Maureen Clare Murphy, reports that Israel has instructed civilians to move to Almasi, an open coastal area lacking infrastructure to meet the needs of displaced people. When issuing evacuation orders in other areas of Gaza, Israel most recently ordered Palestinians to evacuate to Almasi on August 24th, according to the UN. Israel has repeatedly struck facilities being used as shelters for displaced people in Gaza, often claiming without evidence that they were being used as command centers by Hamas and other resistance groups. Despite the vast tunnel networks used by resistance fighters, Maureen writes, over the weekend, the Israeli military attacked the Halima Al Sadia School, sheltering hundreds of displaced Palestinians in Jabalia Al-Nusra in Northern Gaza. The attack, which occurred without warning on Saturday, killed four people and injured several others. That same day, four Palestinians, including a child, were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed the Amar Ibn Al-As school north of Gaza City, which was also being used as a shelter.
The Human Rights group Euromed Monitor stated that "Since the beginning of August, the Israeli occupation army has bombed 16 schools being used as shelters in the Gaza Strip," noting that all but one of the targeted schools are in the northern half of Gaza. Maureen writes that "The deliberate destruction of civilian infrastructure in Gaza's North, including facilities serving as shelters, is part of Israel's strategy to create a coercive environment in order to forcibly transfer the population to Central and Southern Gaza." According to Euromed, the rights group pointed to reports in Israeli media about a plan to depopulate Northern Gaza, drafted by Israeli reservist commanders and soldiers. The scheme, reportedly presented to Israel's cabinet and other senior officials, was spearheaded by Giora Eiland, the retired Major General and close adviser to Israel's defense minister, who called for creating conditions for the spread of epidemics in Gaza as a form of biological warfare. It calls for an estimated 300,000 civilians to evacuate Northern Gaza in a one-week period, after which the area would be besieged and Hamas fighters would be made to surrender or be killed.
For much more on the attacks on Almasi and the critical situation in the north of Gaza, read Maureen Clare Murphy's latest report, "Israel Kills 40 in Gaza Humanitarian Zone," on electronicintifada.net. Airstrikes and ground attacks continued against Palestinians across the northern and central strip this week, including in Deir el-Balah and in Gaza City. Attacks on Monday alone across Gaza killed more than 30 Palestinians. On Monday, Israel bombed an apartment building in Western Gaza City and attacked the Jabalia refugee camp, killing six Palestinians, including two children. Hassam Shabat, a journalist working in Northern Gaza, said on Monday that "Today at the massacre scene in Northern Gaza, a young girl no more than a year old was killed. Her head was ripped open and brain matter was exposed. Paramedics had to stuff her head with cloth so that her body can hold up to be buried."
On Tuesday, hours after the massacre in Al-Masri, Khan Younis, Israeli airstrikes targeted a shelter in Bureij refugee camp near Deir el-Balah in the central Gaza Strip. Our contributor Abu Bakr Abed has been reporting constant tank shelling, airstrikes, and fire from helicopter gunships in and around Deir el-Balah over the past few days. Earlier in the week, the UN and its local partners in Gaza ended the second phase of the polio vaccination campaign, reaching more than 256,000 children in the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis. The Israeli military ordered Palestinians in the northern city of Beit Lahia to be forcibly displaced amidst the beginning of the third phase of the polio vaccination campaign in the north. In preparation for the mass vaccination campaign, international humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), were denied permits by Israel to cross checkpoints into the north, according to Al Jazeera.
The Geneva-based Euromed Human Rights Monitor stated that Israel is critically undermining Gaza's polio vaccination campaign in the north. On Tuesday, Israel bombed a food stall in the Tuwfa neighborhood, located between three deconfliction centers providing as safe designated as safe for providing polio vaccinations to children in Northern Gaza. The rights group said they stated that "From the beginning of the polio vaccination campaign on September 1st, the Israeli Army has ignored all calls for a humanitarian truce or a temporary cessation of attacks during vaccination hours. Instead, it has continued its military attacks on all areas of the Gaza Strip from the north to the south, launching dozens of air raids targeting sites near vaccination centers in the southern, central, and now northern sections of the strip."
Muhammed Hadi, the United Nations Humanitarian Coordinator for Palestine, released a statement on Tuesday saying that 12 UN staff members "whose movement was fully coordinated with the Israeli Army and whose details were shared with them in advance were stopped on its way to North Gaza on Monday to support the third phase of the Gaza Strip-wide polio vaccination campaign." While at the checkpoint, the team was informed that the Israeli Army wanted to hold two of the UN staff members in the convoy for further questioning. Hadi said the situation escalated quickly with soldiers pointing their weapons directly toward the convoy personnel. Israeli troops encircled the convoy and fired shots before Israeli military tanks and a bulldozer "proceeded to ram the UN vehicles from the front and from the back, compacting the convoy with the UN staff inside." According to Stéphane Dujarric, spokesperson for the UN Secretary-General, he added that the bulldozer dropped debris on the first vehicle while Israeli soldiers threatened staff, making it impossible for them to safely exit the vehicles. The convoy remained held at gunpoint while senior-level UN officials attempted to de-escalate the situation with the Israelis. The two staff were eventually questioned one by one and then released after seven and a half hours at the checkpoint. The convoy returned to base without being able to fulfill its humanitarian mission to support the polio campaign. Despite the assault on the UN convoy and the enormous obstacles for humanitarian aid missions in the north, the Palestinian Ministry of Health and the UN teams were able to vaccinate 77,000 children against polio on Tuesday.
This week, we published a personal narrative from Gaza-based writer Saja Hamouda, who describes how being forcibly displaced multiple times is affecting her young children and her family's overall health. Saja writes, "Zacharia, who's only eight, has started having difficulty speaking. It seems he grasped the realities of the tragedy we were living. He asked questions even philosophers couldn't answer: Why are we here? What did we do wrong? When the war ends, where will we where will we live?"
"Calamities rarely travel alone. Recently, hepatitis A has spread among the tents. Hepatitis A is most commonly transmitted through human waste. Like everyone else in the camp, we used the mosque bathroom. Some of my relatives contracted the disease as a result and suffered from its symptoms, which included a loss of appetite and an inability to taste food for two weeks. Without irony, doctors recommended avoiding canned foods, eating more vegetables, and consuming honey, as if they didn't know we can only have canned food. Can can only imagine the luxury of fresh vegetables and are barely able to remember what honey looks like, let alone how it tastes. And we are relatively blessed, us the displaced people. At least we have some bread and food. In the South, our relatives in the northern sector don't even have canned don't even have canned food or a loaf of bread. Despite the harsh conditions we have endured and continue to endure, we hold on to hope and faith that tomorrow will be better. We may have lost our homes and security, but we have not lost our humanity and dignity." That's from Saja Hamouda's feature, "Dream of Returning Home Keeps Family Moving Forward," on electronicintifada.net.
Turning to the occupied West Bank, Israeli soldiers withdrew from Jenin refugee camp in the north after a 10-day raid in which essential infrastructure was destroyed. At least 21 Palestinians were killed and more than 130 injured. Since the end of August, Israeli forces have besieged other refugee camps across the northern West Bank. Our senior editor, Maureen Clare Murphy, writes that this past week, Israeli occupation forces killed both an American woman during a protest in Beita, a village near Nablus, and a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in a separate but nearby incident on Friday. In the latter incident, Banah Amjad Baker was struck by a bullet in her chest while her while in her home during confrontations that erupted in Qaryut village, also near Nablus, after settlers raided and attacked the community. The girl's father said that she was shot by Israeli occupation forces while in her room with her sisters. The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported. Defense for Children International Palestine stated that on the previous day, "Israeli forces shot and killed a 16-18-year-old Palestinian boy in the northern occupied West Bank and then desecrated his body." The teen, Majid Abu Zina, "was shot in the leg by an Israeli soldier from a distance of 30 meters in Al-Far'a refugee camp south of Tubas." Israeli soldiers approached Majid as he lay injured on the ground and prevented a Palestinian ambulance from reaching him, according to Defense for Children International Palestine. Majid pleaded with Israeli soldiers to let the ambulance help him, but they ignored him, and one of them ordered him to lift up his shirt, "which revealed a homemade explosive device that Majid was allegedly carrying." The soldier "then shot Majid at point-blank range in the neck, killing him," according to the children's rights group.
Maureen writes that video shows an Israeli military bulldozer moving the boy's body with its front blade. The soldiers operating the bulldozer drove around Al-Far'a with the teen's body in the blade for an hour before dumping him in another area of the camp. The Palestinian Center for Human Rights said that the boy's abdomen was torn open while being carried by the bulldozer, and his internal organs were exposed. His body was "disfigured and unrecognizable" when it was finally retrieved following the withdrawal of Israeli troops hours later. The US citizen killed in Beita on Friday was identified as 26-year-old Jawad Abu Hamad, a resident of Seattle, Washington. The International Solidarity Movement stated that Abu Hamad was an activist with the group and is the 18th person to be killed in the context of Beita's protests since 2020, following the establishment of an outpost settlement on village land. Israeli troops fired tear gas and live ammunition during confrontations that ensued following afternoon prayers held during the protest, forcing demonstrators to retreat toward the village. Demonstrators were congregated on the outskirts of the village, some 150 to 200 meters away from Israeli troops, according to Jonathan Pollack, an Israeli anti-occupation activist who was present when Abu Hamad was shot in the head. The situation was quiet when a sniper positioned on a rooftop fired two live bullets, he said. "I found her lying on the ground bleeding from her head," Pollack said, adding that she had a very weak pulse. Abu Hamad was evacuated to a hospital, but efforts to save her life failed. Sadeq Deab, a resident of Beita, told Wafa news agency that after the shots rang out, "I saw the soldiers dancing happily at what they had done." That's all from Maureen Clare Murphy's report, "Witness: Israeli Troops in West Bank Intentionally Killed US Activist," on electronicintifada.net.
Palestinians in Beita held a massive funeral for Abu Hamad on [Music] [Music] Monday. The US State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that Washington will not be conducting its own investigation into Jawad Abu Hamad's execution in the occupied West Bank. Instead, he said that US officials expect Israel to investigate itself. US President Joe Biden provided cover for Israel, suggesting last night that the bullet that hit Jawad in the head had ricocheted off the ground, calling it "an accident."
Meanwhile, after Israeli troops withdrew from Jenin, leaving massive destruction of roads and infrastructure, local residents helped clean up the streets and repair the damage, and funerals were held for resistance fighters who were killed during confrontations with Israeli soldiers during the 10-day invasion. In Tulkarm, the Israeli Army partially withdrew last week but reinvaded the city on Monday. The Palestine Red Crescent Society stated on Tuesday that Israeli forces assaulted members of their medical team in Tulkarm. Israeli soldiers, the physicians say, targeted one of their volunteer paramedics with live bullets while he was providing first aid to an injured person in Tulkarm camp. Israeli forces also arrested two EMTs from inside the Tulkarm Emergency Medical Services Center after storming and surrounding it. The Red Crescent added the medics were eventually released.
Finally, we wanted to bring you some images and videos from journalists and others in Gaza that highlight the resilience, joy, and determination of the Palestinian people. Kids in a makeshift tent classroom in the north, organized by the educational initiative Gaza Great Minds, showed off their English language skills. I get, I do, I watch, I [Music]. And our dear contributor Abu Bakr Abed posted a photo of a magnificent work of art that his father, Wesam, made especially for the electronic intifada. It says, "From Deir el-Balah, Gaza, to the electronic intifada, with hope, with love, and hope." And that's it for the news roundup. As always, go to electronicintifada.net for much more, especially to read our new features by our brave writers in Gaza. [Music]