September 11,
2024
Flashlights in
the hands of rescue workers break the dense darkness over the sand in
al-Mawasi, the tent encampment sheltering displaced Palestinians in Khan
Younis. A group of men with shovels struggle to remove sand in the middle of a
giant crater created by an Israeli airstrike on the Israeli-designated “safe
zone.” In video testimony collected for Mondoweiss, rescue workers pull out
half-buried blankets from the sand and explain that they are trying to dig
people out of the massive crater that was caused by an Israeli airstrike.
Palestinians inspect the damage at the site of the second Mawasi massacre, September 10, 2024. (Photo: Naaman Omar/APA Images)
The Israeli
massacre at Mawasi in the early hours of Tuesday, September 10, is the latest
in a string of targeted Israeli strikes on displacement camps across the Gaza
Strip, alongside the bombing of school shelters. As of the time of writing, the
massacre has claimed the lives of at least 40 Palestinians and injured 60
others, according to the Gaza-based Ministry of Health. This is also the second
major massacre in the Mawasi “safe zone” and the fifth overall in the area. The
first major massacre took place in the middle of July and led to the death of
90 Palestinians. In that attack, Israel claimed to be targeting the leader of
Hamas’s Qassam Brigades, Muhammad al-Deif. In Tuesday’s most recent attack, the
Israeli army claimed to be targeting a Hamas command center.
According to the
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor, the latest massacre at al-Mawasi was
carried out with U.S.-made bombs with “a wide destructive capacity.” The UN
secretary general, the UN coordinator for humanitarian affairs in Palestine,
and the EU chief of diplomacy have all condemned the massacre.
Attack with no
warning
“They told us to
move to al-Mawasi, so we came to al-Mawasi,” a middle-aged man in a blue
undershirt tells Mondoweiss in the wake of the attack. “They gave us no
warning. They didn’t tell us to move or that this was a combat zone. They hit
us completely by surprise.”
“I woke up
looking for my children, and then I walked out and saw people scattered. One
dead over here, another over there,” he continues. “Look at this crater. It is
at least 20 meters wide. Of course, there are more people under the sand, but
we’ll only know in the morning.”
“Those here are
poor people fleeing the bombing,” another elderly Mawasi local says on camera.
“Some of them pay rent for the place they are in, others are allowed to stay
for free, but they are all regular people. None of them are part of the
resistance or anything.”
“We pulled out
many martyrs and injured. There are still many more under the sand, but most of
them are women and children,” he exclaims.
Over the past
several weeks, the Israeli army has reduced the areas it has designated as
“safe zones” in Gaza to less than 30% of the strip’s surface. Over one million
people, or half of Gaza’s population, are forced into these small areas.
Whenever the Israeli army bombs these encampments, entire families are often
killed. In Tuesday’s Mawasi massacre, entire families were buried in the sand.
Israeli bombs
change the landscape
Although the
Israeli army claims that each attack that leads to a massacre is targeting
Hamas, the encampments are largely makeshift with little infrastructure that
could presumably be used by Hamas as “command centers.” At al-Mawasi,
Palestinians have installed improvised toilets in between tent groups, the only
existing structures aside from fragile tents. When Israeli bombs drop on these
areas, they effectively change the landscape of the area.
“The explosion
was so strong that even water came out of the ground,” a displaced survivor
tells Mondoweiss. “As you can see, there are only tents around us, nothing
else,” he points. “Imagine yourself sleeping when all of a sudden you find out
that everything around you is being torn apart. Of course we were shocked! I
couldn’t see anything or anyone in front of me at first,” he adds.
“There were five
tents here,” he says, pointing to one of the craters. “And then four tents over
there, and a couple of toilets on that side.”
“I woke up and
found myself covered in blood,” another survivor with a bandage on his forehead
and half his face burnt from a previous incident says. “I ran screaming,
calling for my family, only to find that the nearby house collapsed on them,
but thank God they all survived.”
“They [the
Israeli army] had bombed another encampment on the other side, and the house
over here collapsed on people,” he adds breathlessly. “I don’t know what else
to say. God help us.”
Dave DeCamp
Israel’s relentless assault on the
Gaza Strip continued on Wednesday, and Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that at
least 64 Palestinians were killed in the previous 24-hour period.
Palestinians check the
grounds of a school after an Israeli air strike hits the site in Nuseirat, Gaza
Strip, on September 11, 2024. (Photo by Majdi Fathi/NurPhoto)
The latest violence brings the
number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7 to
41,084, according to the Health Ministry’s figures, which don’t account for the
10,000 people estimated to be missing and presumed dead under the rubble. The
ministry said the number of wounded has reached 95,029.
Strikes in Gaza on Wednesday
included the bombing of a UN school turned shelter for displaced Palestinians
in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The strike killed at least 14
people, including two children and a woman, and wounded 18 others.
The UN’s Palestinian relief agency,
UNRWA, said six of its employees were killed in the bombing. “Among those
killed was the manager of the UNRWA shelter and other team members providing
assistance to displaced people,” UNRWA said. “This school has been hit five
times since the war began. It is home to around 12,000 displaced people, mainly
women and children.”
Without providing evidence, Israel
claimed that it targeted a Hamas “command and control” center in Nuseirat.
An Israeli strike targeted a home in
Khan Younis early Wednesday, killing 11 people. According to Al Jazeera, the
European Hospital, which received the casualties, said the dead included six
brothers and sisters, ranging in age from 21 months to 21 years old.
Gaza’s Civil Defense said that an
Israeli strike targeted Palestinians waiting in a line for bread in Gaza City,
killing three people and wounding seven. Late Tuesday, a strike was reported in
the Jabalia refugee camp that targeted a home, killing nine, including six
women and children.
The Biden administration continues
to support the genocidal slaughter in Gaza by providing weapons to the Israeli
military. A senior Israeli Air Force official recently acknowledged that
without the US military aid, Israel would not be able to sustain operations in
Gaza for more than a few months.
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