July 8, 2024
he Israeli
army’s invasion of Gaza City’s eastern Shuja’iyya neighborhood has entered its
second week, and it is now spreading to other parts of the city. The entire
city is being put under siege, with its some 300,000 remaining inhabitants
trapped in the middle with nowhere to go.
Palestinians flee eastern part of Gaza City after they were ordered by
the Israeli army to evacuate their neighborhoods, July 7, 2024. (Photo:
Hadi Daoud/APA Images)
The Shuja’iyya
invasion started from the east as the Israeli army launched a surprise attack
without prior warning to its residents. People suddenly found army tanks
between their homes, leading people to begin leaving the al-Nazaz, al-Mantar,
and al-Mansoura areas in droves. The people who remained were located in the
northern and southern regions of Shuja’iyya.
The Israeli
operation has followed a clear pattern so far. Military forces launch
incursions into different neighborhoods at different points, storming one area
after the other until they have deemed the resistance there eliminated. Often,
the army encounters more fighting than expected, prompting an even wider
invasion of large urban swathes in an attempt to snuff out the resistance. The
operation swallows up more neighborhoods, and the army issues evacuation orders
to the residents that have remained. Often the evacuation area is the same
location in which Israeli forces operate.
On Sunday, July
7, the army ordered residents of different areas in Shuja’iyya such as al-Daraj
and al-Tuffah, as well as residents of Gaza’s Old City, to leave their areas
and head west. After residents obeyed the army’s orders, they found Israeli
tanks coming in from the direction they were told to flee, indicating that the
city was being surrounded from all sides. Thousands attempted to reach the
United Nations headquarters in western Gaza but found the tanks stationed
there, too. Gunfire, missiles, and “fire belts” surrounded them, leaving the
displaced with nowhere to turn to.
Many of these
refugees have been forced to spend the night in the street, especially after
the army bombed a school two days ago housing a large number of displaced
people in western Gaza City, killing dozens of Palestinians.
Testimonies
gathered by Mondoweiss from Shuja’iyya residents confirm that the Israeli army
operations continue to be met with fierce resistance, with several residents
describing the marked intensity of the army’s artillery fire and airstrikes
across the neighborhood.
Residents tell
Mondoweiss that the bombing in al-Shuja’iyya, al-Tuffah, and the Old City does
not stop. Several say the bombardment is “incomparable” to anything they have
experienced so far.
Sleeping in the
streets
Lina Hajj Ahmad,
31, who lives in the Daraj neighborhood, tells Mondoweiss that two days ago,
she was preparing a meal for her four children when she heard people outside
her house screaming and running in the streets. She did not finish preparing
the food, instead going outside to find out what was happening. She learned
that their area had just received an evacuation order. Her husband was out of
the house, but she carried what she could and left with her children without
waiting for his return.
On the way, she
managed to meet up with her husband. They stopped to try to read where they
were going, but when the sound of the bombing began and the advance of Israeli
tanks could be heard in the distance, they began to run without deciding upon
or knowing their destination.
“Even though I
never left Gaza City, I have been displaced over ten times,” Lina tells
Mondoweiss. “I can no longer count the number of times I had to carry my family
and leave the house without anything to guarantee my return to my home.”
“Every time we
return to our home after the most recent displacement, we find new parts of it
destroyed or damaged,” she continues. “We try to restore it as much as
possible, but I don’t know what will happen this time. They are blowing up
entire residential areas and people don’t know where their houses are anymore.”
Throughout the
night, she kept hugging her children and holding them in her arms, attempting
to make them feel a little safer. They all slept on the ground, along with many
other families in similar circumstances. When morning came, they carried their
luggage again and started to search for shade from the sun’s heat.
Many similar
testimonies continue to come out of Gaza City describing how displaced
residents are gathering in what remains of public squares and parks, where they
sleep out in the open. All other civilian shelters continue to be bombed,
including the al-Ahli Arab Hospital, which was attacked in two raids and
threatened with evacuation to prevent people from moving there.
When residents
of the eastern parts of Gaza City heeded army orders to move west — only to be
encountered by more tanks — eyewitnesses say that the resistance confronted the
incursion coming in from the west.
Residents of the
area say that the resistance has not stopped in Shuja’iyya. Several report that
the army is trying to establish huge military zones in the neighborhood, which
they say it is preparing by clearing large tracts of land after blowing up the
housing blocks that used to be there. The army then sets up military sites by
parking dozens of military vehicles there.
As large parts
of the city become turned into military zones, instructions for where residents
should go invariably lead them to dead ends or even more death and destruction.
“They are
pushing us into a trap to kill us,” Lina tells Mondoweiss. “Anywhere we go, we
find nothing but death, constant bombing, and dismembered bodies.”
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