Bakeries are finally re-opening in northern Gaza for the first time since October. “The enemy has tried killing, death, starvation, and destruction and has not succeeded,” Omar Jundia tells Mondoweiss, as he waits for his first fresh bread in months.
Mondoweiss Gaza Correspondent Tareq Hajjaj discusses his reporting on the Israeli siege of al-Shifa Hospital and attacks on Palestinians attempting to return to northern Gaza.
After letting a limited number of women, children, and elderly back into northern Gaza, the Israeli army opened fire on thousands of refugees who attempted to do the same.
During the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital, the Israeli army shot patients in their beds and doctors who refused to abandon the sick, separated people into groups with differently-colored bracelets, and executed hundreds of civil government employees.
9-year-old Yazan Kafarneh died of a congenital illness turned deadly by severe malnutrition under Israel’s genocidal siege. “He didn’t need a miracle to save him,” cries his mother. “All he needed was the food we’ve always been able to provide him.”
Ramadan has arrived, and northern Gaza has been overtaken by famine. “People fast without the promise of breaking it, and the world watches on without doing anything,” Ghazi Oweis, a refugee from northern Gaza, tells Mondoweiss.
The “flour massacre” marked a new phase in Israel’s starving of northern Gaza when the army opened fire on crowds waiting for aid trucks. “Our lives must have become so cheap for so many people to die this way,” a witness told Mondoweiss.
Many Palestinians are fleeing Rafah ahead of Israel’s impending invasion, but when they return to their destroyed neighborhoods they still face bombardment. “We escaped death to walk into a different kind of death,” Jamila Eleywa tells Mondoweiss.
Palestinians in Rafah are dreading Israel’s impending invasion, but there is nothing we can do to ensure our safety. If the army surrounds us, we have nowhere left to go. We will be forced to endure the fire and look death in the face.
Five-year-old Arkan Shaqqura was with his mother when she was shot by an armed Israeli quadcopter. The last thing she told her child as she lay bleeding was to run away and save himself. Her family now doesn’t know if she is dead or alive.