{"id":334,"date":"2024-10-26T14:23:57","date_gmt":"2024-10-26T18:23:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=334"},"modified":"2024-10-26T14:45:14","modified_gmt":"2024-10-26T18:45:14","slug":"survivors-of-north-gaza-invasion-report-israeli-extermination-campaign","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation.info\/?p=334","title":{"rendered":"

Survivors of north Gaza invasion report Israeli \u2018extermination\u2019 campaign<\/b><\/h2>"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Survivors of the ongoing Israeli extermination campaign in north Gaza describe how the Israeli army is separating mothers from children before forcing them south, executing civilians in ditches, and directly targeting hospitals and medical staff.<\/strong><\/h3>\n

BY TAREQ S. HAJJAJ
\nMondoweiss<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cA horrific massacre is taking place in al-Hawaja street in block 7 in Jabalia,\u201d the Civil Defense spokesperson Mahmoud Basal said in a statement posted to Telegram. \u201cThere is no one here to save them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Israeli army claimed the massive attack was targeting a Hamas commander allegedly responsible for the October 7 attack last year.<\/p>\n

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 \u201cGenerals\u2019 Plan<\/a>,\u201d named after a proposal by a group of senior Israeli military officials, based on an earlier proposal by retired Israeli general Giora Eiland<\/a>, 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<\/a> that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told Israeli lawmakers that he was considering adopting the plan weeks ahead of the invasion.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n

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.<\/p>\n

An extermination campaign<\/strong><\/h2>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t know if he will wake up or not.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat is happening in northern Gaza is extermination,\u201d Maqat told Mondoweiss<\/em>. \u201cThe 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt\u2019s actual extermination. They are like none other than Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hamida Maqat, survivor from Jabalia<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cThey are forcibly displacing us from our land and our homes,\u201d she continued. \u201cThey 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\u2019s actual extermination. They are like none other than Hitler.\u201d<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Within twenty days of the start of the military operation in Jabalia and the northern areas, the Ministry of Health in the Gaza Strip reported that 820 people have been killed so far, in addition to many others who remain stuck under the rubble.<\/p>\n

The Civil Defense said that a dangerous precedent is being set in the northern Gaza Strip in which the army is now ordering rescue teams to abandon their posts.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a dangerous incident to empty the northern Gaza Strip of humanitarian services, our crews in northern governorate were subjected to direct Israeli shelling,\u201d the statement read. \u201cIsraeli drones demanded that our crews abandon all Civil Defense vehicles and head to the Sheikh Zayed area, where the displaced are being besieged and detained.\u201d<\/p>\n

Civilians holding white flags gunned down<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Local testimonies from inside Jabalia<\/a> indicate that in its ongoing siege of the area, the Israeli army is killing most people on sight. Even civilian families, who were surprised by the invasion when it started and raised white flags in an attempt to evacuate, were gunned down by quadcopter drones.<\/p>\n

After combing the area, the army has been sending its drones equipped with loudspeakers to call on the residents to leave their homes and follow directions determined by the army, which leads them out of Jabalia and towards the south.<\/p>\n

The majority of those who have held out in the northern Gaza Strip for more than a year say that what is happening in the northern Gaza Strip is also happening in the south and that nowhere is safe.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the siege of the Abu Housin school, where we took refuge in Jabalia refugee camp, the army began shooting at us from all directions using drones and launching shells around us, so we were forced to leave,\u201d Yousef Saudi, a resident of Jabalia camp, told Mondoweiss<\/em>. \u201cIt was not in our hands; we would have all died.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t want to leave our homes and our land, but we also don\u2019t want our children and families to die. We want to escape death,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Local reports have also emerged that the Israeli army has sent remote controlled booby-trapped troop carriers into areas where civilians have refused to leave and detonated them in the middle of residential areas. This strategy has reportedly been repeated in multiple areas.<\/p>\n

Separating mothers from children<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Many of the residents who managed to leave before the invasion did not in fact go south, and instead heading to Beit Lahia, which borders Jabalia to the north. Those who were unable to evacuate were gathered by the Israeli army in different areas like Sheikh Zayed and al-Joura, where women were separated from men and children. Witnesses recount horrific testimonies of families forcibly separated from one another, with the men arrested and taken to unknown locations for investigation, and mothers separated from their children.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were in the Abu Hussein School in Jabalia when the army stormed the school and forced us out at gunpoint,\u201d Yousef al-Saudi told Mondoweiss<\/em>. \u201cThe army gathered us all in the schoolyard. Our loved ones and relatives were lying on the ground, bleeding from injuries due to the shelling, and the army did not let anyone go towards them to save them.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the army gathered the families they were led from inside the school to another location, and it was here that the crowds were separated \u2014 children in one place, men in another, and women in yet another. Mothers saw their children lying on the ground and screamed without being able to reach out to them, as any of the mothers who attempted to move were either shot directly by the soldiers, or by quadcopter drones hovering overhead.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cThey ordered us all to enter these large ditches\u201d<\/p>\n

Yousef al-Saudi, Jabalia resident<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cAfter they separated us from each other, they ordered us all to enter these large ditches. The men were put in one hole, the women in another, and they left the children on the ground,\u201d al-Saudi said. \u201cAfter they forced us into them, the Israeli tanks and vehicles began to circle the ditches, creating huge dust clouds, and sand was flying everywhere. We thought we were taking our last breaths, and we thought the bulldozers would bury us alive in those ditches. Dozens of us were all reciting the shahada<\/em>, thinking that these were our final moments.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter hours, the army began to take us out of the holes one by one,\u201d he continued. \u201cThe soldiers were pointing at us from above and ordering us to move. After interrogating us, they ordered us to head south, while arresting dozens of men.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for the women and children, the soldiers made the women climb out of the ditch one woman at a time, ordered them to pick up a child from the ground at random, and told to walk in a predetermined route that took them south. Women were forced to pick up children who were not their own at the army\u2019s orders and made to march on, leaving their own children behind and hoping that some other woman would pick them up.<\/p>\n

\u2018We buried them in blood-stained clothes\u2019<\/strong><\/h2>\n

A man with severe wounds to his neck and one eye lies on a bed inside the al-Ahli Arab Hospital.<\/p>\n

\u201cExtermination\u2026extermination. This is extermination,\u201d he told Mondoweiss<\/em>. \u201cThey kill us in every way. They bury us alive. They run over men, women, and children with tanks and bulldozers. They want us to leave our land, but our souls will leave before we leave our land. We will stand firm until death.\u201d<\/p>\n

The young man was unable to say anything else.<\/p>\n

Nevin al-Dawasah, a paramedic who worked throughout the military operation inside in Jabalia refugee camp at the displacement centers, said that the injuries she witnessed were \u201cterrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

Al-Dawasah told Mondoweiss<\/em> that the army deliberately targeted those centers. First they sent drones to film the site, then the area was shelled.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe were dealing with dozens of injuries every hour, and dozens of martyrs were dying in front of our eyes because there was no safe way to transport the injured to any hospital,\u201d she said. \u201cThe Civil Defense teams were telling us that they were unable to reach us inside the displacement centers affiliated with the United Nations in Jabalia refugee camp.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cDue to the lack of resources in Jabalia, we could not find shrouds for the martyrs. We would wrap them in blankets and plastic tarps, and sometimes we buried them in their blood-stained clothes,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jaber Abu Laila, 55, sits in the Ahli Hospital next to his only surviving son, who has been left a quadriplegic as a result of being injured by the shelling in Beit Lahia. Abu Laila also lost three other sons, who he found dead and piled on top of each other in Beit Lahia.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cI carried my sons in my hands and buried them. I felt like I was burying myself with each one of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jaber Abu Laila, Beit Lahia resident.<\/cite><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/figure>\n

\u201cI found my three sons had been killed, and my last son was paralyzed. I carried my sons in my hands and buried them. I felt like I was burying myself with each one of them,\u201d Abu Laila told Mondoweiss<\/em>.<\/p>\n

He stresses that his family are all civilians with no connection to any organization or military action, and that he is not to blame for anything that is happening.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy sons died, and the majority of the people died. No one cares about our death. No one cares about ending this genocide. What is our fault?\u201d Abu Laila asked.<\/p>\n

Muhammad al-Sharif contributed to this report.<\/em><\/p>\n

___
\nhttps:\/\/mondoweiss.net\/2024\/10\/survivors-of-north-gaza-invasion-report-israeli-extermination-campaign\/?<\/a><\/p>\n

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