By by Motasem A Dalloul | –
( Middle East Monitor ) – The most well-known football stadium in the Gaza Strip is chaotic, with masses of people flooding the pitch and seating. Everyone is carrying a bag on their back and some clothes. Some are helping sick people or carrying wounded relatives, while others are walking alone, struggling along on bare feet.
“We left the bodies of our children killed in Israeli air strikes either under the rubble or on the street,” an old man explains. He fled northern Gaza under heavy Israeli bombing.
Today, the people are not rushing to take their seats and enjoy a football match or a circus. They look for an empty place to rest after fleeing relentless Israeli bombing. The stadium is an encampment for displaced persons.
“Thanks be to Allah, we are safe,” said 72-year-old Hassan Abu Wardeh, who arrived in the stadium along with his sick wife and 13 children and grandchildren. “After the start of the third Israeli ground incursion into our area, we remained 25 days in our home,” he told me. “They were the worst days I have ever lived.”
That started on 6 October, when the Israeli occupation forces attacked Jabalia, concentrating on its refugee camp. Then the incursion was extended to the other north Gaza cities, including Beit Hanoun in the east and Beit Lahiya in the west.
“Since the start of their incursion, the Israeli occupation forces have been targeting homes and refugee shelters in Jabalia refugee camp, the beating heart of the city, clearly to put pressure on the inhabitants to run away,” explained Abu Wardeh. “However, most people persisted and stayed in their homes. We know that there is an Israeli plan to force us out of our land.”
Day after day, the Israeli occupation forces have targeted homes and refugee shelters alike, killing and wounding hundreds of people. The intensity of the bombardment meant that all rescue teams in the north had to suspend their services, including the Civil Defence and Ambulance teams.
Putting further pressure on Palestinian civilians to force them to leave, the occupation state has also targeted the three major hospitals in northern Gaza. Anyone seeking medical assistance and treatment has to go south to Gaza City.
Not content with dropping bombs and missiles on northern Gaza, said Abu Wardeh, the occupation forces have also used barrel bombs in the streets to displace the local population.
They detonate them without warning.
The sheer cruelty and brutality of the occupation forces saw Abu Wardeh ask his sick wife, his children and grandchildren to leave the house and move to Gaza City. His brother, who lived next door, moved 19 members of his family north to Beit Lahiya.
“I stayed at home along with two of my children and one of my grandchildren,” he said. “Five hours after the evacuation of the house, an Israeli missile turned it into rubble. It was a miracle that we survived.” It took another five hours for volunteers and neighbours to pull him and his children out from under the rubble.
“My grandson suffered from light bruises. I was happy that we were alive, but was very sad to hear that seven homes in our neighbourhood were bombed at the same time and 27 neighbours were killed. Only seven bodies were retrieved; the rest are under the rubble.”
This is how the Israeli occupation regime has been forcing the displacement — “evacuation” — of the northern Gaza Strip. People are killed, wounded or abducted. Hospitals have been destroyed, medical staff have been killed or arrested, and humanitarian aid is stopped from reaching the area. At the same time, the regime destroys entire residential compounds and is building massive sand barriers to separate northern Gaza from Gaza City.
Abu Wardeh, whose parents were forced out of Al-Majadal during the 1948 Nakba, is afraid that he is facing a new Nakba. The regime drops leaflets telling the people that they must leave their homes because they are in the middle of an “operation area”.
Then the occupation forces destroy their homes and destroy their refugee shelters.
During the ongoing incursion, the Israeli forces have killed more than 2,200 people in northern Gaza alone. A further 6,300 have been wounded while more than 1,000 have been detained — basically abducted — including children.
Spokespersons for the Israeli occupation army have declared several times that they will not allow the Palestinian residents of northern Gaza to return to their homes. According to Haaretz, the Israeli regime is carrying out ethnic cleansing as part of the “Generals’ Plan” laid out by one of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military aides. Fanatical Jewish settlers are waiting expectantly to build illegal settlements in the Palestinian territory.
“I am afraid that we will never return to Jabalia,” added Abu Wardeh. “In any case, I am still hoping to return not to Jabalia, but to Al-Majdal.”
The right of return upon which his hope depends is entirely legitimate. It still seems a long way from happening though.
The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.
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Bonus video added by Informed Comment:
Al Jazeera English: “‘Huge increase’ in displaced people in Gaza City: MSF”
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