‘Exterminate Gaza!’ – Lawnmowers pile up atrocities against civilians

Alameen Templeton

Israel is piling atrocities on top of violations mired in massacres and mayhem, churning northern Gaza’s kill zone into bloody gore as it wages open war against 400 000 civilians in a bid to force Hamas’s surrender.

Despite the horror and carnage all around them, most residents are still refusing to obey Israeli orders to move to the Al-Mawasi refugee tent camp because they know Israel regularly bombs it too.

Israel has openly threatened the 400 000 people trapped in the north of the battered strip with annihilation if they don’t move, cutting off all aid and fuel, and promising only death and starvation if they remain.

‘Kill everyone, everything’

It’s all part of the now-notorious “General’s Plan” – to focus soldiers’ attacks on civilians, rather than Hamas, in a bid to force its surrender. Anything that moves in the “kill zone” is considered a target and Israel is prepared to kill one and all because its military operations against Hamas have failed to stop its attacks against Israeli troops.

The genocidal state Monday morning hammered another depravity onto its Gaza campaign’s long list of almost daily atrocities, shelling the courtyard of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital and unleashing a fire storm among the makeshift plastic refugee tents that killed 22 people in the resulting inferno.

Civil defence crews are still battling raging flamed that are threatening the hospital itself, Al-Mayadeen reports.

They underlined their inhumanity by bombing an Unwra school also sheltering refugees in the Nuseirat refugee that was supposed to start administering polio vaccines today.

Gaza’s Media Office stressed that the occupation deliberately bombed the school, knowing that it sheltered thousands of displaced civilians.

Additionally, the school was not labelled as a combat zone, essentially meaning it was supposed to be a safe place for refugees.

“A strike hit a hospital courtyard, burning the tents where people were sleeping,” the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on X.

Civilian targets preferred

“Just before this, an Unrwa school sheltering families was hit in Nuseirat. That same school was going to be used as a polio vaccination site today.”

The Al-Mujahideen Resistance said Israeli soldiers preferred civilian targets that didn’t shoot back because they were being hammered in direct military engagements with the resistance. It held the US and Israel directly responsible for the atrocities.

Israeli tanks are now threatening the northern side of Gaza City, targeting several districts in the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood, Middle East Eye reports. Their direct attacks on civilians saw a drone targeting five children playing near a café in al-Shati area, killing them outright.

Monday morning’s death have taken the death toll in the kill zone to over 300 since the “Generals’ Plan” launched nine days ago.

Hamas condemned the bombardment and siege, saying Israel was “aiming to turn the North Gaza Governorate into a zone of devastation and death as part of its plan to displace our Palestinian people.”

The invasion over the past 24 hours, amid a brutal siege and invasion of Jabalia wiped out eight members of the Abu Ghali family, whose home was bombed Sunday morning in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.

Civilian deaths keep climbing

WAFA news agency reported that Walid Abu Ghali, his wife Shireen, and their six children, Mohammad, Ahmad, Yasmeen, Samah, Yara, and Tala, were all killed.

WAFA said that four more people were killed in the Jabalia refugee camp and that the casualty count is expected to rise as many of the injured are in critical condition.

The relentless attacks are preventing people from leaving the area safely. Many are refusing to obey the evacuation orders, knowing the military are determined to never allow them to return to their homes.

“Quadcopter drones are hovering low over the streets, firing at anything that moves,” Mohammed Shehab, a 27-year-old resident, told +972 Magazine from inside the camp. “Snipers are positioned on rooftops, targeting anyone who steps outside. At the same time, soldiers and tanks have pushed into the camp, demolishing homes and bulldozing roads and fields.”

“Nobody is allowed to get in or out. Anyone who tries is getting shot,” Sarah Vuylsteke, a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) project coordinator, posted on X on Friday, noting that five MSF staff are trapped.

‘Afraid to stay, afraid to leave’

“We were staying at the Al-Yemen Al-Saeed Hospital, but they bombed it. About 20 people were killed. I don’t know what to do, at any moment we could die. People are starving. I am afraid to stay, and I am also afraid to leave,” said Haydar, an MSF driver trapped in Jabalia camp.

The israelis remain determined to wipe out all human life in the kill zone, allowing no food in while threatening residents with starvation if they aren’t murdered by soldiers or air strikes.

The World Food Programme (WFP says the main crossings into north Gaza remain closed, and no food has entered since 1 October.

“Food distribution points, as well as kitchens and bakeries, have been forced to shut down due to airstrikes, military ground operations, and evacuation orders. The only functioning bakery in North Gaza caught fire after being hit by an explosive munition,” WFP said.

WAFA reports Israeli forces have erected earthen barriers along main roads between Gaza City and the north of Gaza.

Soldiers in Jabalia are using explosive robots to destroy homes, resulting in significant casualties among residents, WAFA added.

Starvation as a weapon

The “Generals’ Plan”, promoted by retired Reserve General Giora Eiland to force all Palestinian civilians out of northern Gaza, is trying to entice residents away from their homes by promising them food and water.

“But in a week, the entire territory of the northern Gaza Strip will become military territory, and this military territory, as far as we are concerned, no supplies will enter it,” he threatened at the beginning of the month.

And so starvation as a weapon has become the norm.

WFP said food distribution points, as well as kitchens and bakeries in North Gaza, have been forced to shut down due to Israeli airstrikes, military ground operations and evacuation orders. The only functioning bakery in North Gaza caught fire after being hit “by an explosive munition”.

“The north is basically cut off and we’re not able to operate there,” Antoine Renard, WFP Country Director for Palestine said.

As Israel tightens its brutal siege, fighting intensity now matches those taking place at the very start of the Gaza genocide. Hamas’ Qassam Brigades and other factions have been fighting pitched battles with Israeli troops and vehicles.

Blood and fuel supplies arrive

In a rare bright light on a bloody day, the World Health Organisation reported it had been allowed to resupply two besieged hospitals in the north with fuel and blood after nine failed attempts to get through over the past week.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the resupplied the Kamal Adwan and Al-Sahaba Hospitals after intense international pressure to prevent a repeat of the Al-Shifa Hospital tragedy.

Ghebreyesus said 13 critical patients were transferred to Al-Shifa Hospital, but 60 patients still remained. He condemned Israeli harassment of WHO staff as they tried to administer the hospital’s needs, criticising the obstacles they were putting in the way of humanitarian missions.

NDTV reports the resupply mission also delivered 20,000 litres of fuel to keep Kamal Adwan and Al-Awda hospitals operational, and 23,000 litres of fuel were delivered to Al-Sahaba Hospital, along with 800 units of blood and essential medicines and supplies.

The fuel is used to run the hospitals’ generators.

Reuters reports Israeli soldiers have isolated Beit Hanoun, Jabalia and Beit Lahia i from Gaza City, blocking access between the two areas except for families willing to leave

‘Death is the same everywhere’

“Despite the terrifying situation and the deafening sound of explosions, people here, particularly in Jabalia, are not budging from their homes,” a journalist in Gaza City told Middle East Eye.

“Residents of the north are saying they would sooner die in the streets than leave to the south. People in the south tell us that while death is the same everywhere, life in the south is unbearable. They are living in tents and in humiliation.”

“The ground invasion is the worst and ugliest thing. The sound of tanks as they move at night is terrifying and the sound of their shelling is terrifying,” he said.

“For the past four nights, the Israeli army has launched flare bombs that illuminate all of Gaza City, which has also been very stress-inducing.”

Residents say dozens of bodies are rotting in the streets with no one able to bury or identify them. Only two out of eight water wells in Jabalia are still working.