YOUNG VICTIMS: A boy and girl wait for treatment on the floor of the hospital in Khan Younis on Tuesday this week. Photo: Fatima Shbair / AP / NTB
SØR-GAZA/OSLO (VG) Israel’s stated aim is to crush Hamas, but in Gaza people are also killed who have been opponents of Hamas for many years, family members of those killed tell VG.
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Three young men walk towards the hospital in Deir al Balah, south of the Gaza Strip on Tuesday this week.
One man is carrying the body of three-year-old Usama Mohammed Eid, who is wrapped in a flowered blanket. Usama was first missing in the ruins after an Israeli bomb attack on the building where the family was staying, but now he has been found.
VG’s local reporter in Gaza asks if he can take a photo of the dead boy’s face, in order to document yet another murdered child. So long, over 6,000 children, like Usama, will have been killed since 7 October.
But when the family members unfold the blanket, VG only sees broken body parts and entrails, no face.
– We haven’t found his head yet, says one of the men.
– It is still in ruins. We have searched and will continue to search.
SURVIVOR: Mohammed Eid (13) is the cousin of the murdered boy Usama. His little sister Janna also died in the attack. Photo: Sami Abu Salem/VG
Now no people are safe, anywhere in Gaza.
For the past week, Israel has bombed southern Gaza non-stop, day and night, since the ceasefire with Hamas was broken at the weekend. At the same time, Israeli soldiers have begun an extensive ground war against the southern city of Khan Younis.
Inside the hospital in Deir al Balah, this was some of what VG encountered:
Israeli spokespersons and politicians have continuously said in recent weeks that their bombs are hitting Hamas targets – and that they are doing their utmost to avoid civilians being killed.
But residents VG meets on the ground in Gaza say otherwise – namely that the bombing appears largely random.
Resident Mazen Ghrayyeb fled from northern Gaza to the south, when Israel told people in the north to flee.
His family has for a number of years been outspoken opponents of Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip. Nevertheless, they fell victim to Israel’s bombing.
– Hamas killed four of my cousins in a revenge attack several years ago. They were enemies of Hamas, and members of the Fatah movement. In this war, Israel has killed the children of my cousins, he says to VG.
BOMBED HOME: They killed Mazen Ghrayyeb’s family. Photo: Private
The Fatah movement is the largest of the Palestinian member organizations, and controls the Palestinian government in the West Bank. After Hamas won the elections in Gaza in 2006, Fatah was driven out of Gaza after fighting with Hamas.
But there are still a great many people living in the Gaza Strip who do not like the rule Hamas has stood for.
– There are so many people who are killed here, who have nothing to do with Hamas. Israel kills ordinary people, even enemies of Hamas, says Ghrayyeb.
This is what it looked like outside the hospital in Deir al Balah on Tuesday, when VG was there:
Outside the al-Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah, VG meets Rami Sheikh Khalil, the father of ten. On November 7, an Israeli warplane bombed his home, he says.
Five of his children, and his wife, were killed.
Now Rami lives in a four square meter tent outside the hospital, together with his five surviving children. During the attack, his left leg was injured.
– I don’t believe in Hamas, I don’t like them, they have arrested me three times, tortured me, one of my legs was broken in torture, but now the other is broken by Israel, says Rami.
SURVIVORS: Five of Ramis Sheikh Khalil’s children were killed in an Israeli attack. Here he is with two of the surviving children. Sahar (16) stands on the left. Photo: Sami Abu Salem/VG
For him, it is important to show that Israel’s war is not only against Hamas members, as Israel claims.
– Israel is lying. They killed five of my children and my wife, and destroyed my house, even though I am among Hamas’s enemies and victims here in Gaza, he continues.
Rami’s 16-year-old daughter, Sahar, who also survived the bombing, will also speak.
– In fact, this is a war against us, against ordinary people. We don’t even like Hamas, and around us there were no Hamas targets when the attack happened, she says.
Ahed Firwana, a political analyst from Gaza whom VG speaks to, says that the murder statistics after the bombings clearly show that Israel is not only going after Hamas targets.
– Israel also hits some Hamas targets, but the majority of victims are ordinary people, he says.
ATTACKED: Palestinians are treated on the floor of the Nasser hospital in Khan Younis on Tuesday this week. Photo: Fatima Shbair / AP / NTB
Fatah activist Ahmed Abu Adham (42), left his home in Gaza City, when Israel started the bombing after 7 October.
Now he is homeless and on the run in southern Gaza. After he left, he learned that the family house, on five floors, has been left in ruins in an Israeli attack.
Ahmed says he does not understand why that particular house was bombed, because he and all his brothers are members of Hamas rival Fatah.
– I have been arrested by Hamas several times, and I have been injured in fights between them and the PA. We have suffered from them, he says and adds:
– It means that this war is against all people here. Hamas is in the tunnels under the ground, not in the houses being bombed.
Published:
Published: 06.12.23 at 18:12
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2023-12-06 17:12:48
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