Despair in Gaza city by Israeli invasion: ‘The current siege will lead to complete destruction’

“People are terrified. They have no idea where to go.” Amjad Shawa, the director of the Palestinian NGOs Network (PNGO)-an umbrella organization for dozens of Palestinian NGOs-, tells by telephone from Gaza city about the panic among the population.

This week, the Israeli army raised its attacks on Gaza City through air strikes and the systematic Destruction of residential buildings. For the hundreds of thousands of residents of the area, who often live on the ruins of the earlier destruction, a complete siege, military occupation and expulsion to the south now threatens.

In the southern areas, where the Israeli army hopes to drive the entire population of Gaza together, hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have already been staying in overcrowded tent camps, where there are also hunger and air strikes take place. “In Deir Al-Balah and Al-Mawasi it is in no way better,” says Shawa.

Although there are air strikes everywhere, the attacks on Gaza city are currently concentrating on the Sabra and Al-Zeitoun neighborhoods in the eastern parts, says Shawa. “I fear that if they will enter all the neighborhoods of Gaza City, large massacres will follow. Most houses in Gaza City have already been destroyed during the past 22 months. Many residents stay in tents. The current siege will lead to a complete destruction of the city.”

According to the Palestinian Health Minister, the death toll has risen to 62,000 by the Israeli genocidal violence in Gaza. According to estimates, the actual death toll is much higher.

Traumas

In October 2023, the Israeli army also ordered the approximately one million inhabitants in the north of Gaza to go south. During the temporary file with Hamas, now half a year ago, some of them returned, often after being displaced after countless times. Shawa himself was displaced for fifteen months and returned during the file. “I have no other place to go. Where do I have to go with my wife, children, and mother who can’t walk well?”

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Most in Gaza city have little choice than to stay, Shawa explains. Among the population, many sick people, people with malnutrition, wounded and amputants – are still apart from the deep psychological traumas. “Who is going to walk south if you have an old woman or sick person with you?”

According to Shawa, thousands have nevertheless moved to the south in recent days. From Northern Gaza, and in particular from the besieged Jabalia, refugees arrive in Gaza City after the army had given an ‘evacuation order’ there.

Debris and dust

For the 21-year-old English and writer Sara Awad from Gaza Stad and her parents and younger brothers and sisters, a flight to the south for a long time was not an option. “We would rather have been in danger here than we would live in a tent,” she says by telephone. For the invasion, Awad Engels studied at the (now destroyed) Islamic University in Gaza City. Through online lessons, she is difficult to continue her studies.

For the time being, the army has not yet given an order for the area where Awad is staying in the north of the city. But if the army also enters there, the family may still flee. “We are no longer able to get the occupation again [het Israëlische leger, red.] To be seen in front of our house, and to hear the sound of tanks, drones, and constant air strikes. “

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Awad’s district in the north of Gaza city was heavily bombed in the first months after October 2023, the start of the Israeli siege of Gaza. “There is rubble and dust everywhere. I am surprised that our house is still standing. The windows are out, and a wall has collapsed, but it is not completely destroyed.”

The first months she stayed in the same house with forty family members. Even during that period, Israel imposed a complete blockade: there was hardly any food, water and electricity. Sixty people were killed in an air raid on the building of their neighbors. Only one man survived the attack.

The family then decided to leave their house. With tens of thousands of other displaced persons, they stayed in the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City for more than forty days, in a crowded corridor opposite a toilet. Later they returned to their house, while most inhabitants of the city now stayed displaced in the south.

Starvation

After five months of Israel’s almost complete blockage of relief supplies in Gaza, since the beginning of March, Awad’s daily routine consists of a fight against hunger, she says. “It is much more difficult than during the earlier famine, when my body was still healthy and had no vitamin deficiency. I lost a lot of weight, but my parents much more. If I look at my father, who only weighs sixty kilos, I am very angry.”

The consequences of the deliberate Faming through the Israeli blockade of relief supplies are particularly large in Gaza city. Last Friday, the UN food supervisor IPC noted that there is famine. The same situation also threatens in the more southern ones, Deir Al-Balah and Khan Younis, where, according to the report, more than 20 percent of the population is already in the last, catastrophic phase of food insecurity.

Already the death toll as a result of starvation as a result of the Israeli blockade is on a daily basis. Under the more than 270 kill are at least a hundred children. Aid organizations indicate that with the current, very small supply of food aid, the situation will further deteriorate. In addition, the prolonged Physical consequences of starving intensive care and specialist food.

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According to Amjad Shawa, Israël recently admitted a few dozens of trucks food aid from the World Food Program (WFP) via the Zikim limit transition in North Gaza, but have never reached distribution or storage places because the load is either already emptied after the transition or is stolen on the way. Earlier, dozens of Palestinians who tried to get help with Zikim through the Israeli army killed.

Sara Awad says that since two weeks some commercial goods have suddenly been entered in Gaza City. As a result, a little more food is available on the market, such as flour, but there are still hardly any fresh products such as dairy, vegetables or fruit available. The prices are towering. “If you don’t have money, you can’t eat.”

Awad sees the limited supply of commercial goods in Gaza City as a way of Israel to divert international attention from the increased attacks: “They let some food inside, to be silent and leave to the south.”

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