Survivors of north Gaza invasion report Israeli ‘extermination’ campaign
Bodies of Palestinians killed in Israeli attacks on Jabalia refugee camp are brought to al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, 23 October 2024
Tareq S. Hajjaj reports in Mondoweiss on 25 October 2024:
On Thursday night, the Gaza Civil Defense announced that a massive Israeli airstrike targeting a residential area on al-Hawaja street in the northern Gaza town of Jabalia killed over 150 people.
“A horrific massacre is taking place in al-Hawaja street in block 7 in Jabalia,” the Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said in a statement posted to Telegram. “There is no one here to save them.” The Israeli army claimed the massive attack was targeting a Hamas commander allegedly responsible for the October 7 attack last year.
On October 5, the Israeli army stormed the northern Gaza Strip, an area that includes Jabalia, Jabalia refugee camp, Beit Lahia, the Tawam area, Attatrah, and the Saftawi area. The ongoing campaign is an implementation of the so-called “Generals’ Plan,” named after a proposal by a group of senior Israeli military officials, based on an earlier proposal by retired Israeli general Giora Eiland, which aims to empty the north of Gaza through starvation and bombardment. According to the plan, those who remain in northern Gaza are to be considered enemy combatants and subsequently eliminated. The Associated Press reported that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli lawmakers that he was considering adopting the plan weeks ahead of the invasion.
Estimates from official Palestinian sources put the number of people in those areas at 200,000. Those who refused to leave since the start of the war a year ago live near the bombed-out remains of their homes or displacement shelters. Jabalia and Jabalia refugee camp, historically a stronghold of Hamas, has been the hardest hit area. Now the Israeli army is determined to push out its inhabitants once and for all.
An extermination campaign
Hamida Maqat stands in the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City surrounded by her family members who survived the ongoing massacres in Jabalia. The Israeli army bombed her home in Jabalia refugee camp on October 20, killing her husband, son, brother, and nephew. She and a handful of other family members survived and were rushed to Ahli Hospital.
Hamida points to her family members in the hospital, some of whom suffer from severe burns and are receiving treatment at the hospital; others were injured by shrapnel, and her other son was wounded in the head and went into a coma. They don’t know if he will wake up or not.
“What is happening in northern Gaza is extermination,” Maqat told Mondoweiss. “The bombing does not stop for a second. Everything on the ground is being bombed. My brother was cleaning the water well in his house when the planes bombed it. He was killed along with his wife, his children, and his grandchildren. More than 16 people were inside the house, and no one was able to reach them.”
“They are forcibly displacing us from our land and our homes,” she continued. “They are killing those who remain in the most horrific ways. They are depriving us of water, medicine, and food. They are preventing rescue teams from getting to the wounded. It’s actual extermination. They are like none other than Hitler.”
The Israeli army has continued to target civilians and displacement centers in the northern Gaza Strip, bombing hospitals and ordering medical personnel and patients to leave while bombing Civil Defense vehicles. One of the areas where the army gathers civilians in northern Gaza is the Sheikh Zayed area, where it conducts interrogations, arrests, and field executions, according to local reports.