“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.”
– Yoav Gallant, Israel’s war minister
“Throughout the past 24 hours, we have been conducting aerial strikes—destructive aerial operations that include thousands of armaments. To put that in perspective, the pace of the strikes is five times that of the strikes on Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War. I repeat, five times what it was against Hezbollah in the Second Lebanon War.”
– Daniel Hagari, IDF spokesperson
“I was driving my car and about to enter the street, suddenly the sky flashed with light ... People were literally thrown into the air. Some [bodies] were found on the rooftops of buildings. Children’s [bodies] were on the streets, someone’s head was cut from his body, his head was thrown outside and body inside the building. Almost everyone who was inside the Rabaa Mall was killed. No one there was left alive. It’s a massacre that no one imagined could happen.”
– Muhammed Lubbad, Gaza resident
“I ran away from home at 1am with my child and my wife. We escaped from being targeted and came to another targeted place. We were surprised by everything, as fire and flames were thrown at us. There is no safe place in the Gaza Strip.”
– Shadi al Hassi, Gaza resident
Israel said that it was gunning for Hamas. But it appears that the bombardment is indiscriminate. All reports are of carnage in Gaza. Journalists dead. Health workers dead. Hospitals attacked. Ambulances destroyed. Entire neighbourhoods wiped out. Families buried under rubble. Dozens of children slaughtered.
“[The] majority of Israel’s targets have been civilians”, reports media outlet the Middle East Eye. “They have bombed hospitals, a UN school sheltering displaced people, universities, mosques, markets, banks, telecommunication companies, and residential towers, among other civilian infrastructure.”
The Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, a nonprofit organisation, reports:
“Israeli forces are mass-killing civilians in the Gaza Strip ... Within a few hours of a single night, Israeli armed forces killed approximately 70 children inside their homes ... In the form of retaliation and collective punishment, Israeli forces deliberately target civilian objects to inflict widespread casualties and destruction, including material and human losses ... This violates international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions (1949), and amounts to a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.”
The Ministry of Health-Gaza Strip has issued a press release, in which it says:
“The Israeli occupation [has] expanded the targeting circle for medical personnel, health facilities and ambulances, which caused the killing of five health personnel and the injury of ten others. Seven hospitals and health centres were targeted, and direct damage was caused in large parts of them.”
According to the UN, there has been a “mass displacement” of close to 200,000 people and that this is just the beginning.
The Middle East Eye also reports that the UN has been forced to close “all 14 food distribution centres in Gaza—leaving half a million people without vital food aid” and that Israeli airstrikes “have damaged three facilities used for water, sanitation and hygiene, undermining services to over 400,000 in Gaza city and the northern area of the Gaza Strip”.
Israel, using the rhetorical cover of “self-defence”, is annihilating Gaza. And Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says: “We are just getting started”.
