As Israel’s genocidal war resumes in Gaza, entire families are being exterminated amid the bombardment, with family homes becoming family graves. Survivors tell Mondoweiss most of the dead are women and children.
Israel was backed into a corner on the eve of its return to war because Hamas was forcing Netanyahu to honor the ceasefire deal he had signed. Confronted with his own internal political challenges, Netanyahu’s only choice was to blow up the deal.
After two weeks of systematic Israeli violations of the tenuous ceasefire agreement, Israel has officially resumed its genocidal war on the Gaza Strip. Despite Israel’s killing of over 400 people, Hamas remains committed to completing the ceasefire.
Hamas said that it would release Israeli-American soldier Edan Alexander and the bodies of four deceased Israeli captives. The announcement has backed Israel into a corner in the ongoing ceasefire negotiations.
Palestinians in Gaza’s border areas have continued to be killed and injured on a daily basis since the ceasefire began in mid-January. A resident of Shuja’iyya tells Mondoweiss, “The war has not stopped, quite the opposite. The war intensified.”
As prices soar and essential goods disappear, famine conditions threaten to return to Gaza following Israel’s closure of the border and the suspension of the delivery of fuel and aid.
The Israeli army has resumed random shelling and airstrikes against Palestinians in Gaza, marking the latest Israeli attempt to sabotage the ceasefire following Netanyahu’s violation of the agreement by stopping the flow of humanitarian aid.
Hamas leaders in Gaza say that although they will accept a “national consensus” on who governs Gaza, the movement will not lay down its arms. But Israel intends to tank the ceasefire through its violations of the deal, a senior Hamas leader tells Mondoweiss.
The Israeli army expanded its “Iron Wall” offensive in the northern West Bank, sending tanks into Jenin for the first time in two decades and announcing that displaced residents from Jenin and Tulkarem would not be allowed to return to their homes.
As I sit in Egypt in exile, looking at photos my family has sent me of our home in rubble, there is only one thing on my mind: my return to Gaza.