Latest news with #AlZaytoun
The National
4 days ago
- Health
- The National
Israeli air strikes 'wiping out' Gaza city neighbourhood in prelude to invasion
Residents of Gaza city say Israel has launched fierce strikes on a busy neighbourhood, in what they fear is the prelude to a full-scale invasion of the city. Intensified air strikes on the Al Zaytoun neighbourhood – one of the largest and most densely populated in Gaza city – killed at least eight Palestinians and wounded dozens on Thursday, Palestinian news agency Wafa said. Gaza's civil defence agency said Israeli forces have destroyed more than 300 homes in the neighbourhood in just three days. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu 's government last week approved plans to seize control of the city. 'This is no longer a military operation – it's a campaign to erase Al Zaytoun,' said Mahmoud Arhim, a resident who fled with his family after four days under siege. 'We saw death with our own eyes. The neighbourhood has been wiped out completely.' According to journalist Bilal Al-Nabih, the Israeli army has invaded Al Zaytoun at least five times since the war escalated in March, but the current operation is by far the most destructive. Israeli equipment has been used to detonate buildings deep within the neighbourhood, leaving entire residential blocks in ruins. Residents found themselves trapped inside their homes, completely cut off from the outside world. While a few managed to escape during brief lulls in the bombardment, many others remain unreachable- their fate still unknown. Rescue efforts have been severely hindered. Mahmoud Basal, a civil defence spokesman, said crews are unable to reach many trapped residents due to the intensity of the continuing bombardments. 'What is happening in Al Zaytoun is a grave and complex crime,' he said. 'It aims to destroy what remains of Gaza city and its centre.' Hospitals across Gaza are overwhelmed. The Ministry of Health reported that in the past 24 hours, 54 Palestinians were confirmed dead and 831 others wounded. For Mr Arhim, 43, the attacks on his neighbourhood are deeply scarring. 'We were besieged for four days and got out by a miracle, me and my family of six," he said. We saw death with our own eyes more than once." "It seems the occupation has decided to take over Gaza city, starting with Al-Zaytoun, to reach the centre and destroy it completely, just like in the northern neighbourhoods and Rafah.' Mr Arhim chose not to evacuate to the south during the war, holding on to his lifelong connection to the neighbourhood. 'I was born here, I grew up here, and I raised my children here,' he says He described scenes of devastation. 'No one could reach them because of the destruction, the shelling that never stopped, and the danger everywhere,' he says, referring to the bodies in the streets and the wounded left without aid. Starvation is also claiming lives across Gaza. Four more people – including children – died from malnutrition in the last day, raising the total to 239 such deaths, 106 of whom were children, according to the Gaza health ministry. Nearly 200 Palestinians have been killed in the strip since Tuesday, including tens who were seeking aid, Wafa said. As the destruction of Al Zaytoun accelerates, calls are growing for urgent international intervention. Survivors describe a neighbourhood turned into a war zone – its homes completely flattened, its residents scattered or dead, and its streets filled with rubble. 'This must be stopped,' said Mr Arhim. 'There has to be a solution to protect people before Gaza city is erased entirely.'
The National
26-06-2025
- Politics
- The National
Losing focus on ending the Gaza war would be a mistake
As much of the Middle East welcomes the tentative ceasefire that appears to have halted the 12-day war involving Iran, Israel and the US, for Palestinians there is no such reprieve. During the missile exchanges that closed regional airspace and drove frantic diplomacy, Israel's military continued to press its assault in the ruined enclave despite their country's towns and cities being the target of Iranian missiles. Palestinians are well aware that as other communities across the region breathe a sigh of relief, their ordeal goes on. 'We don't have a strong ally,' Amira Nassar, 29, a resident of Gaza's Al Zaytoun neighbourhood, told The National on Tuesday. 'We don't even have a real country with borders to defend us. Who cares about us? We're no longer part of the game. We're weak and we don't matter.' It is difficult not to empathise with such despair. Although Gaza appeared to fall from the international agenda as countries tried to avert wider catastrophe in the Middle East, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict nevertheless remains an unresolved issue that brings much despair and fuels conflict across the region. As Israel's fatally ill-conceived campaign in Gaza grinds on with the same deadly results seen for nearly 21 months, all sides now have a responsibility to build on this moment of de-escalation. The reality is that Israel's stated war aims in Gaza remain unmet despite the appalling death and destruction meted out since the deadly Hamas-led attacks of October 7, 2023. At least 50 hostages remain unaccounted for, and seven Israeli soldiers were killed during an attack in Khan Younis on Tuesday. Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups are down but not out. With no end to the war in sight in Gaza voices inside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's own party – such as senior Likud figure Michael Kleiner – have said they believe it is the time to end it. Many Palestinians are angry that a way was found to halt a major Middle East war in just 12 days, while the one they find themselves in has continued for far too long Similarly, Hamas – now greatly weakened and largely shorn of its Iranian support – also has a responsibility in finding a way out of a conflict it provoked with its 2023 killing of more than 1,200 Israelis – most of them civilians – and the kidnapping of over 240 more. A gruelling war of attrition in which Palestinian civilians are subjected to collective reprisals, repeated displacement and a fatal lack of food, water and medicine offers no victory worth talking about. The examples of Iran and its Lebanese proxy Hezbollah are relevant here: both sought a way out of conflict once their losses proved too great without any resolution for the Palestinians. The longer the Gaza war goes on, the more civilians will die. On Tuesday, the UN human rights office reported that 500 people have been killed while trying to access humanitarian aid at sites secured by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a US and Israeli-backed private organisation. Amid such suffering, many Palestinians in Gaza are understandably frustrated and saddened that a way was found to halt a major Middle East war in just 12 days, while the one they find themselves in has continued for far too long. Without a similarly international and focused effort to end the Gaza catastrophe, not only will Palestinians continue to believe, as Ms Nassar said, that their lives don't matter, there will be no lasting Middle East peace.
