Report
Israel accelerates its offensive in Gaza and a massacre in Shate
Violent explosions from high-yield bombs pulverized some 20 houses and buildings in Shate. The result was a massacre: 24 people were killed and dozens injured. Another 14 Palestinians could not be found under the rubble.
A ceasefire, a halt to the Israeli offensive, an end to the slaughter of Palestinian civilians: there is no prospect of any of this in Gaza. Quite the opposite: as international attention on the piecemeal destruction of the Strip wanes, the Israeli military has stepped up its advance on Rafah, along with the air raids, which are happening everywhere and are just as devastating as in the first months after October 7. On Friday, the terror came upon evacuees in a tent city in Mawasi, on the southern coast, with heavy shelling that killed 25 Palestinians. On Saturday, death and destruction rained down on the rubble-strewn streets of the Shate, Shujayeh and Tuffah refugee camps near the capital, Gaza City.
Violent explosions from high-yield bombs pulverized some 20 houses and buildings in Shate. According to the Israelis, the target was Saad Raad, a senior Hamas leader. But there were innocent civilians, including children, in those streets and the few houses still standing, mostly displaced people from the north. The result was a massacre: 24 people were killed and dozens injured. Another 14 Palestinians could not be found under the rubble.
Videos circulating online show dozens of people busy searching for victims among the destroyed houses. As of Saturday night, nothing was known about the fate of the target, Saad Raad. Almost at the same time, more bombs fell on Tuffah, where they killed 18, and on Shujayeh. Seven Palestinians were killed in Zayton, the Gaza City suburb from where Hamas is launching mortar and rocket launcher attacks against army vehicles on the Netzarim Corridor, built by Israel to cut the Gaza Strip in half. Over 24 hours, 101 Palestinians were killed, bringing the total to 37,551 since October 7.
On Saturday, the south fared no better. Rafah is an inferno of fire and debris in which militants from Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups are fighting with everything they’ve got against the advance of Israeli armored units. The Israeli army did not expect such a level of heavy fighting, which is now one of the reasons being invoked for the acceleration of the offensive. In essence, the carpet bombing of so many homes is meant to both uproot and destroy Palestinian fighting cells as well as to allow the Israeli army to avoid sending its men to fight house-to-house, thus limiting their casualties in ambushes and firefights.
As a result, the Israeli soldiers are protected, but the consequences for Palestinian civilians are devastating, as could be seen on Friday in Mawasi. The Israelis are denying that its forces fired on the tent city, killing and wounding dozens of people. The Palestinians categorically reject their version, pointing to direct testimony and a video showing an armored vehicle opening fire toward the tent city.
Mawasi had been designated a “safe zone,” but this is not the first time such an area is being shelled. The Red Cross also confirmed that shells were directed toward the tent camp and reported on the damage the blasts caused to its base in Mawasi. The European Union has called for an independent investigation into the incident.
“The EU condemns the shelling which damaged the @ICRC office in #Gaza and led to dozens of casualties. An independent investigation is needed and those responsible must be held accountable. Protection of civilians is an obligation under Geneva Conventions,” wrote EU High Representative for Foreign Policy Josep Borrell on X, who will hand over his post to another EU representative in the coming days, on X. Israel is certainly not unhappy to see him go.
In recent months, Borrell had been increasingly vocal in his criticism of the Netanyahu government over the assault on Gaza and the humanitarian situation of Palestinian civilians. In reply, Israel has accused him of anti-Semitism. Another official who has spoken out on the behavior of the Israeli Armed Forces in Gaza and the West Bank is Francesca Albanese, the UN Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories: “It is flabbergasting how a state born 76 years ago has managed to turn international law literally on its head. This risks being the end of multilateralism, which for some influential member states no longer serves any relevant purpose,” Albanese wrote on X on Saturday. Cuba also announced it was formally joining the Gaza genocide case filed by South Africa against Israel before the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The Cuban government explained that this was part of the country’s “firm and sustained commitment to support and contribute as much as possible to legitimate international efforts to put an end to the genocide being committed against the Palestinian people” and the “atrocities” resulting from “Israel’s disproportionate and indiscriminate use of force.”
According to local media, Israel is reportedly about to announce the “defeat of the Ezzedin al Qassam Brigades” (the military wing of Hamas) and the start of a new military phase of quick, hit-and-run raids, which would be no less devastating than the current operations in the Strip. The leak is still unconfirmed, but it does raise plenty of questions. Just days ago, military spokesman Daniel Hagari had admitted Israel cannot totally defeat Hamas and that “the idea that it is possible to destroy Hamas, to make Hamas vanish — that is throwing sand in the eyes of the public,” prompting an angry reaction from Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Some are saying the expected announcement would concern only the armed wing of the Islamic movement, and not Hamas as a political and social organization. Nevertheless, the Ezzedin al Qassam Brigades seem far from being completely defeated and continue to inflict damage and casualties on the Israeli army. With the possible start of a new military phase in Gaza, several Israeli army units could be moved north to participate in the war against Hezbollah and the occupation of southern Lebanon, something that has come up more and more insistently as a possibility in the past few weeks. On Saturday, the Israeli Air Force conducted an airstrike in Lebanon in which it killed Ayman Ratma, allegedly responsible for supplying weapons to Hamas.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/massacro-a-shate-israele-accelera-loffensiva-a-gaza on 2015-10-08