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13-05-2021
GAZA CITY/ JERUSALEM: Palestinian residents of Gaza Strip woke up on Thursday to mark Eid al-Fitr – one of the holiest occasions in the Islamic calendar amid relentless aerial bombardment by Israel.
Heavy bombardment on the Gaza Strip continued early on Thursday as Israeli forces launched a series of air raids on various locations.
“Most of Gaza is awake,” sources said, noting that bombardments continue into the night and early on Thursday.
“From time to time you hear loud explosions, and the buildings are shaken.”
Hamas confirmed that its Gaza City commander, Bassem Issa, was killed in an Israeli air attack along with other senior members of the group. The national security office of Hamas was also reportedly hit again by Israeli strikes early on Thursday.
Local sources said Israeli fighter jets bombed sites belonging to Palestinian armed groups, in addition to security and police buildings.
In Gaza City’s Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, a pregnant woman, Reema Telbani and her child were killed in an Israeli attack on their home; an elderly couple in Gaza’s Sheikh Zayed neighborhood was also buried under the rubble of their residence, after an Israeli strike.
Gaza’s Ministry of Health said the overall death toll since the start of the latest offensive stood at 69, including 17 children and eight women as of early Thursday. More than 390 others have been wounded.
Hamas, the group that rules the Gaza Strip, also launched a barrage of rockets into Israel after Israeli missiles destroyed a third tower in the besieged coastal territory.
At least seven Israelis, including one child, have also been killed. The Israeli army said about 1,500 rockets has been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.
Inter-communal violence has also been reported within Israel, with Arab Israelis clashing with Jewish Israelis across the country.
Following Israel’s incessant attacks on Gaza which led to the killing of 56 people, together with the forced eviction of Palestinians from East Jerusalem’s Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, activists belonging to the Jewish faith have come together to condemn the actions of Israel.
Organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace, Independent Jewish Voices, and thousands of people following the organization have taken to social media, starting a campaign to save Palestine from Israeli atrocities.
“The Nakba, the forced expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and lands, began in 1948 and continues today not just in #SheikhJarrah, Jerusalem, but also in Gaza, where civilian home destruction by Israeli bombs have made hundreds of families homeless in recent days,” wrote Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) on Twitter, followed by the hashtag, #SaveSheikhJarrah.
“This is also the case in #SheikhJarrah, where Palestinian Nakba refugees were given land after Zionist militias forcibly displaced them from their homes elsewhere. Today, Israeli settlers, in collusion with the Israeli government, are trying to expel them once again,” the JVP continued.
“As Jews, many of us descend from refugees and feel the intergenerational trauma of our ancestors’ displacement. Now, imagine the accumulated trauma of repeated expulsions over generations with no end in sight. We must support Palestinians in ending their ongoing Nakba.”
Hundreds of Jewish people, mostly living in other parts of the world, also joined the campaign to show solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Abraham Gutman, a journalist who said he is currently in Tel Aviv, tweeted that he and his family are safe and in a shelter.
“Not a single rocket hit Tel Aviv because the US bought Israel an anti-rocket system worth billions. People of Gaza have *nothing* as the US bought planes level residential buildings,” he wrote.
Shatzi Weisberger, a 90-year-old New York resident also joined a physical protest in the city against Israel’s actions.
“I’m 90 years old, old enough to have protested the Holocaust and every other genocide of the 20th century,” she wrote. “When I say Zionism is genocidal and that I’ll be fighting it until the day I die, you better believe me.”
“I am proud to be one of the many Jews who showed up for today’s march. More and more Jews are protesting Israel’s crimes against the Palestinians, and we demand an end to Israel’s apartheid and ethnic cleansing,” Ratto wrote.
Independent Jewish Voices, a grassroots organization in Canada grounded in Jewish tradition that opposes all forms of racism and advocates for justice and peace for all in Israel-Palestine, also joined the Twitter campaign to save Sheikh Jarrah.
“IJV calls on the @JustinTrudeau govt to forcefully denounce Israeli violence against Palestinian protestors and Muslim worshippers as hundreds have been wounded today so far in and around the Old City of Jerusalem.”
Tamara Herman, a Jewish Canadian, also condemned the occupation of Palestine by Israeli forces.
“As a grandchild of Holocaust survivors, I grew up with the trauma of genocide. I’m proud to join with other Jewish people and especially descendants of holocaust survivors in calling for an end of the violent Israeli occupation of Palestine #SaveSheikhJarrah #NotInMyName.”
At least 56 people have been killed in Gaza since Israel escalated attacks on Monday, according to the Palestinian health ministry. On the other hand, six people have been killed in Israel, medical officials said.
Israel’s Shin Bet security service said the brigade commander for Gaza City was among senior members of Hamas who had been killed.
“This is just the beginning. We’ll hit them like they’ve never dreamed possible,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a statement.
Soon after the announcement, rockets were fired at the Israeli city of Ashdod and Israeli media said the military was preparing for new salvoes on the Tel Aviv area. Meanwhile, a senior Hamas commander was also killed on Wednesday in an Israeli air strike.
A Palestinian source said truce efforts by Egypt, Qatar and the United Nations had made no progress to end the tension that flared this week.
In Gaza, a multi-storey residential building collapsed after Israel warned its occupants in advance to evacuate, and another was heavily damaged in the air strikes.
Other air strikes hit what Israel’s military said were rocket launch sites, Hamas offices and the homes of Hamas leaders. Israeli officials said at least 41 Palestinian fighters have been killed in Gaza so far.
“Israel has gone crazy,” said a man on a Gaza street, where people ran out of their homes as explosions rocked buildings.
Sixteen people were killed in Israeli air strikes on Gaza on Wednesday, Gaza’s health ministry said. Witnesses and health officials in Gaza said one Israeli air strike killed three people, including a woman, in a car. (Int’l Monitoring Desk)
