GAZA, (PIC)
As the genocide in the northern Gaza Strip continues for almost three weeks, the Israeli occupation army forces have expanded their ethnic cleansing operations by force of fire towards the Beit Lahia town project, while besieging the civilian population and depriving them of any basic supplies that save their lives, and confirming through forced eviction orders their quest to empty what remains of them by using hunger and deprivation of medical treatment as a weapon to achieve their military goals, which reflects their persistence and continuation in committing the crime of genocide.
Since Monday evening, October 21, 2024, the town has been subjected to violent bombing operations and a military siege accompanied by the deployment of large numbers of Quadcopter drones that direct calls to citizens demanding that they leave their homes through specific paths under threat of death.
The occupation army demanded that the residents of Beit Lahia town, to which thousands of citizens from Jabalia camp have fled the genocide they have been subjected to for 18 days, leave immediately through designated corridors, threatening to blow up the areas over their heads.
Siege by fire
Journalist from northern Gaza, Abdul Qader Sabah, says that what is happening in the Beit Lahia project area is targeting all shelters by quadcopter aircraft in an attempt to push residents out of the northern governorate either to Gaza City or the southern Gaza Strip, with a siege on all the streets of the town crowded with thousands of citizens from the northern Gaza Strip.
Sabah pointed out that those who tried to leave and flee were targeted, and that a number of the injured and martyrs are in the streets that no one can rescue, “the artillery shelling does not stop in all areas of the north, especially the Beit Lahia project,” and he pointed out that a number of vehicles are advancing at the end of the street leading to Kamal Adwan Hospital, which threatens to stop medical services at any moment. Al Jazeera correspondent Anas Al-Sharif says that the occupation army is imposing a siege of fire on the citizens of Beit Lahia, noting that dozens of citizens were killed or injured and are stranded in the streets of the Beit Lahia project and Jabalia camp after the displaced people were targeted by drones and artillery. The besieged families in the town are appealing for their rescue and evacuation, he added.
The Habub area in the town of Beit Lahia was subjected to repeated aerial and artillery bombardment, “and when the civil defense crews arrived at the site, they found that there were army vehicles in the area and they opened fire on them.”
Twelve citizens were killed and dozens were injured in an artillery bombardment that targeted displaced people at the Abu Al-Jidyan junction in the Beit Lahia project area, while 8 citizens were killed and others were injured in a bombardment that targeted displaced people in the Al-Alami area in Jabalia camp in the northern Gaza Strip.
According to eyewitnesses, the occupation army has set up a checkpoint at the Al-Barawi gas station on the main public street of the town of Beit Lahia and is arresting dozens of Palestinians while they are fleeing the town towards Gaza City.
Witnesses added that, in conjunction with the dropping of leaflets calling for forced evacuation, Israeli artillery bombarded the Beit Lahia project intensively, which led to the martyrdom and injury of dozens, without medical crews being able to reach them due to the intensity of the bombing and targeting by Israeli drones flying intensively over the area.
Israeli drones surrounded the Khalifa bin Zayed school in the Beit Lahia project and threatened thousands of displaced people inside that they will be either killed or arrested if they did not evacuate immediately and head towards the southern part of the Strip.
Witnesses pointed out that despite the occupation army’s orders to the residents of the Beit Lahia project to evacuate, it targeted a large number of the evacuees in the streets either with artillery shelling or by shooting from drones.
Witnesses added that the Palestinians buried the martyrs of the recent Israeli bombing of Jabalia and the Beit Lahia project in the streets without shrouding, due to the depletion of shrouds and the siege imposed by the army on the area.
Mass grave
The residents of the small town, which was previously severely damaged by Israeli attacks during the months of the ongoing war of extermination since October 7, 2023, are suffering from a harsh life, as they are crowded on the sidewalks and in the streets without the necessities of life, and yet the occupation bombs them without any mercy, and their number exceeds 150 thousand people.
The Beit Lahia Project area is a small town within the city of Beit Lahia in the North Gaza Governorate, bordered to the south by the town of Jabalia and Al-Nazla, and to the east by the city of Beit Hanoun, while it is bordered to the west by the Mediterranean Sea.
Meanwhile, Dr. Hussam Abu Safia, director of Kamal Adwan Hospital located in the town of Beit Lahia, says that the hospital is only hours away from turning into a mass grave, stressing that the martyrs are being buried without shrouds in the northern Gaza Strip.
He explained in media statements that blood units have completely run out, and that the wounded are lying without any possibility of evacuating them.
He revealed the loss of a number of wounded due to the lack of equipment and capabilities, explaining that doctors and nurses are applying a policy of preference between the wounded, and he noted, “The medical teams are extremely exhausted.”
He concluded saying, “The occupation notified us of the evacuation, but we will not leave the hospital, and we will not abandon the patients and the wounded.”
The collapse of the health system
The occupation army forces deliberately bombed and targeted the upper floors of Al-Awda and Indonesian hospitals and besieged patients and medical teams in them on Monday October 19, while escalating their bombing operations and the pace of targeting residential neighborhoods and civilian homes over the heads of their residents.
The Palestinian Center for Human Rights warned of the complete collapse of hospitals in the northern Gaza Strip due to the repeated targeting and bombing and the killing of patients, medical teams and displaced persons to forcibly evacuate them during the most difficult times of emergency with the continuation of the Israeli military attack on northern Gaza.
The human rights center expressed its concerns about the three hospitals (Kamal Adwan, Al-Awda, and Indonesi) going out of service and being exposed to conditions similar to their evacuation in November and December 2023, “as they are now operating at less than their minimum capacity, and with exhausted capabilities, due to previous targeting, and the severe shortage of medical staff, fuel supplies, medicines, and food.”
The occupation’s aggression threatens the lives of the wounded and more than 285 patients lying in these hospitals, including eight newborns and five adults in intensive care units, and about 161 patients in emergency departments, many of whom are in urgent need of advanced surgeries, such as neurosurgery, vascular surgery, eye surgery, and cosmetic medicine, services that are not available in these hospitals, according to the Health Group in Palestine.
The hospitals in northern Gaza were stormed, destroyed, and targeted in the two previous raids by the occupation forces in December and May, and were later partially restored.
Disaster area
For his part, writer and political analyst Saeed Ziad described what is happening in northern Gaza as a process of closing in on the last population centers in Jabalia camp and Beit Lahia project, where the occupation army is besieging 150,000 people with tanks and drones in the last spots to which they have been displaced, and is targeting them with heavy firepower in order to displace them.
Ziadah said in a post on the “X” platform that the situation is catastrophic and dangerous, “and may lead by the end of the day to the complete annihilation of the northern Gaza Strip.”
In addition, the Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor renewed its call to the United Nations to declare the northern Gaza Strip a disaster area, which requires immediate interventions, obligating the occupation authorities to stop the genocide there, and protecting civilians.
It said in a statement a couple of days ago that the occupation army is committing systematic and widespread mass and individual killings, deliberate starvation, mass forced displacement and complete destruction of what remained of the necessities of life, stressing that the international community’s deaf ears and inability to stop what is happening makes it a partner in the most brutal genocide.
