The recent crackdown on worshipers at the Al-Aqsa compound has confirmed the fears of many in Gaza: the Netanyahu government is provoking Palestinians as a pretext to launch another war.
The Netanyahu government has so far externalized its ongoing crisis through its military campaign on the West Bank, but Palestinians in Gaza fear that it might ultimately resort to war to cripple the Israeli protest movement.
While the people of Gaza cheer for resistance in the West Bank and call for armed factions in Gaza to support it, they also fear that escalations with Israel will lead to another war on Gaza.
Israel has admitted to conducting the airstrike that killed five Palestinian children in Gaza after initially blaming their deaths on a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket. The strike targeted the al-Faluja cemetery in the town of Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip, and struck five children, four of whom were from the same family, while they were visiting the grave of their grandfather. The youngest victim of the strike was just three-years-old.
An Egyptian-brokered ceasefire went into effect at 11:30pm local time (20:30 GMT). Palestinian Islamic Jihad announced the ceasefire in a statement, adding that they have a right to “respond to any Zionist aggression.”
Mondoweiss correspondent in Gaza Tareq Hajjaj reported that Israeli airstrikes were ongoing in the last hour leading up to the ceasefire.
The Gaza Health Ministry reports that 43 Palestinians, including 15 children, have been killed in Gaza since Israel began airstrikes on the besieged strip on Friday.
Israel’s 11-day offensive on Gaza last May claimed 259 Palestinian lives, and the UK nonprofit Airwars estimated that between 151 and 192 were “non-combatant” civilians. On just one day Israel killed more than 56 civilians in what has come to be known as the al-Wahda street massacre, while targeting tunnels in Gaza City. Of these, at least 25 fatalities were likely children.
At least 38,000 Palestinians have fled their homes and sought shelter in schools run by the United Nations as hundreds of houses were completely destroyed in airstrikes since last Monday. Tareq Hajjaj reports from Gaza where Palestinians describe a night of fear, running from their homes barefoot and gripping children in the midst of Israeli airstrikes and artillery fire.