Israel moves to eliminate northern Gaza

Today, I went for a walk in the old city of Bethlehem. Though I went to clear my head, it was immediately apparent upon entering the market that whether it was the words on vendors’ lips, the videos on people’s phones, or the news playing live on televisions mounted inside stores, northern Gaza is on everyone’s mind. About three weeks into a siege that has targeted the entire area, Israel is using every tool it can to enact death and destruction against Palestinians in Jabaliya, Beit Hanoun, and Beit Lahiya, by bombing, shooting, and abducting people while denying anyone access to food, water, or medical care.

At least 770 Palestinians have been confirmed killed and 1,000 people wounded during the last 19 days of Israel’s eliminatory assault on the north — and these numbers only include people who made it to the hospital to be identified and included in the count. According to a statement by the Government Media Office in Gaza, at least 200 people have been abducted from northern Gaza in the last few weeks, dozens are missing, and at least 100,000 people are wounded, sick, or otherwise in urgent need of care. Israel is also preventing the implementation of the emergency polio vaccination campaign in northern Gaza, creating more opportunities for an epidemic.

For weeks now, our feeds have been filled with videos of civil defense workers in northern Gaza, using every opportunity to answer the calls of people trapped under the rubble. These heroes, who have been working for more than a year to rescue their community members, fight for hours to lift rubble without access to heavy equipment (imposed by the US-Israeli siege which has prevented the entry of sufficient fuel). Sometimes, they miraculously pull a living child from the rubble. Many times they find themselves recovering corpses if they are able to recover anyone at all.

Israel’s attacks on the people serving as the backbone of emergency response and community care are not limited to the strain it has systematically created on civil defense members, or the targeted attacks on them. Israel has killed more than 1,000 medical staff in the last year. Today alone, Israeli forces have murdered several healthcare workers — among them, Mohammed Salman, a doctor at the Indonesian Hospital who was targeted and shot by a drone in Beit Lahiya. Dr. Mohammed Ghanem, another doctor at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, was also killed by a drone strike in Beit Lahiya today. Two days ago, Israeli forces killed Bilal Abdul Aal, a nurse and another employee of Kamal Adwan Hospital, and his family in an airstrike on their residential building.

These attacks on hospital workers mirror Israel’s direct attacks on hospitals. At the same time, reports from Jabaliya refugee camp state that bodies are lying in the streets, unable to be recovered by families or civil defense due to Israel’s ongoing attacks, hospitals across northern Gaza have been forced into a state of complete catastrophe. The director of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza announced today: “We are unable to provide healthcare services to the injured and sick due to the depletion of medical supplies.” As a result, 150 who remain in critical condition in the hospital are at immediate risk. Meanwhile, Israel continues to deny UN requests to deliver humanitarian aid to the hospital.

There is so much more to say, so much more horror to translate out of the available statistics. It is impossible to end any discussion of the intense, horrific, eliminatory violence Israel and its forces are perpetrating in northern Gaza without turning to a story that portrays some of the atrocities real people are facing at this moment. Folks may see the videos of men, young and old, separated from their families and forced to strip at gunpoint, only to be carted away in military Jeeps to an unknown fate. You may see the videos of the parents mourning their children who the zionist entity has killed. We cannot turn away from these stories; to remain human, we must listen to them, repeat them to each other, and even more loudly to those who would silence us, and turn them into tools to end this genocide and dismantle the systems that have created its possibility.

Quds News Network reported a story today from northern Gaza, told to them by a survivor from Israel’s project of ethnic cleansing in Jabaliya. In this recollection, the survivor reported that Israeli forces separated mothers from their children, placing the children inside a large hole and moving their tanks around this hole, which resulted in the children being covered with dust and sand as the mothers and children alike screamed. After a period of time, Israeli forces “hurled” the children toward the group of mothers from whom they were separated, with no regard for which child belonged to whom. Mothers were forced to catch children, hoping their own were caught and comforted by someone else, and compelled to leave the area without being reunited.

This is a horrifying account of an event most of us probably can’t imagine witnessing, let alone being a part of. It is harrowing even to write a summary. I present this to you not out of viciousness, that you should feel the pain anyone who reads this story or the many others like it will feel, but because it relates to the sheer terror, the deep cruelty of arbitrariness embedded in Israeli actions, and the reality that this is a war on children. Children, life, and the Palestinian imagination of the future. And they are being very transparent about what it is all for: more territory to settle, more resources, more power, less indigenous Palestinians. Only days ago, hundreds of Israelis gathered just outside of Gaza for a conference focused on “preparing settlements” in Gaza.

As you sit with this story, please also think of the Palestinians in southern Gaza, who are also facing an imposed famine due to the lack of humanitarian aid. Think of the families who have lost loved ones due to “humanitarian aid” dropped from the sky so as not to disrupt the US-Israeli siege on all of Gaza, which prevents aid from entering by land or sea. Think of Palestinians in the West Bank, who are facing increased settler violence during Jewish holidays and the olive harvest season. And, of course, think of those in Lebanon who are also feeling the force of Israel’s eliminatory violence as the state begins to publish propaganda to support an attack on Lebanese resources and hospitals.

Then, take action. It is not enough to collect these stories, data points, or learn the history so we can tell it to each other. We must each find ways to disrupt the genocide machine however we can, whether it is raising money for those seeking support in Gaza, organizing labor strikes, participating in weapons blockades, or disrupting the work of genocidaires in our own communities through political events or otherwise. Every day, the situation becomes more dire and the need for material solidarity more urgent.

Until liberation and return,

Lara