The Gaza genocide may not be in the news, but it hasn’t stopped

“All nan world is simply a stage,” Shakespeare wrote. But connected this shape today, location seems to beryllium nary spot for 1 portion of nan world – Gaza. Instead, nan lights are sparkling brightly connected Donald Trump for his triumph successful nan US statesmanlike predetermination and nan Democrats for their defeat.

As nan world’s attraction focuses connected American politics, nan world media has stopped reporting that group are being exterminated successful Gaza. Looking astatine media headlines, 1 would deliberation nan genocide has stopped, but it hasn’t.

Palestinian journalists and nan hardly functioning aesculapian authorities proceed reporting: 54 group killed on November 5, 38 group killed on November 6, 52 group killed connected November 7, 39 group killed on November 8, 44 group killed on November 9, 49 group killed on November 10.

And these are conscionable nan bodies that person been found. Countless victims dishonesty successful nan streets aliases nether nan rubble successful levelled neighbourhoods.

The Palestinians of Gaza are being exterminated astatine a dependable gait by US-made Israeli combatant jets, tanks, drones, quadcopters, bulldozers and machineguns.

In caller weeks, nan genocide has taken yet different wicked turn, pinch nan Israeli service implementing what nan Israeli media person called nan “General’s Plan” – aliases nan taste cleansing of bluish Gaza.

As a result, full communities are vanishing successful a run that transcends subject goals, targeting nan very beingness of nan Palestinian people.

The towns of Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya were traditionally sleepy villages erstwhile cherished for their cultivation bounty and quiet lifestyle. They were renowned for nan sweetness of their strawberries and oranges and their sandy dunes afloat of grazing sheep and goats.

Nearby stood nan behemoth of Jabaliya, location to nan largest and astir densely populated exile campy among Gaza’s 8 camps, pinch much than 200,000 residents. It is wherever nan first Intifada began successful 1987 aft an Israeli driver mowed down and killed 4 Palestinian labourers.

All areas of bluish Gaza person been taxable to repeated demolition since nan 2nd Intifada. But today, they look a level of unit and devastation that are arsenic unimaginable arsenic they are unprecedented, “a genocide wrong a genocide” arsenic described by Majed Bamya, a elder Palestinian diplomat astatine nan United Nations. The wide death, wide displacement and wide demolition are carried retired pinch shocking ferocity, rendering nan full northbound a wasteland.

At nan commencement of this latest campaign, astir 400,000 Palestinians remained successful nan north, down from a organization of 1 million. These group were fixed an ultimatum by Israel to time off but nary guarantees of safe transition aliases an replacement spot to shelter. Many decided to stay. Those who person tried to time off person often been targeted by Israeli forces and killed successful nan streets. Others who person made it person been tormented on nan way.

In 1 harrowing segment related by a witnesser to journalist Motasem Dalloul, who posted it connected societal media, Israeli soldiers separated children from their mothers and pushed them into a pit. Then an Israeli vessel circled astir nan pit, covering nan children successful soil and terrorising them. Eventually, nan soldiers started taking children from nan pit and throwing them complete to nan women.

According to nan post: “Whoever caught a kid was ordered to transportation him and move distant quickly, pinch nary guarantee that nan kid would beryllium their own. Many mothers carried children who were not their own, and were forced to time off pinch them, leaving their ain children successful nan hands of different mothers. This marked nan opening of a caller section of suffering, pinch mothers searching for their children successful nan arms of different women, trying to calm nan children they held until they recovered their existent mothers.”

For those Palestinians who decided to enactment aliases are incapable to leave, nan scary continues. To unit them retired aliases conscionable to destruct them, Israel has deployed a deliberate argumentation of forced starvation. Its forces are systemically blocking humanitarian assistance from reaching nan north, including food, bottled h2o and aesculapian supplies.

To accelerate wide death, nan Israeli service is besides preventing aesculapian unit and rescue teams from reaching nan wounded and others successful request of aesculapian help. Those who negociate to get to a infirmary often observe upon presence that it tin supply neither aesculapian attraction nor safety. Many succumb to their injuries owed to a captious deficiency of aesculapian supplies and personnel.

The Israeli service has many times attacked nan hardly functioning hospitals successful nan north. This led nan UN typical rapporteur connected health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, to explanation Israel’s actions arsenic “medicide” connected October 25. According to a caller UN report, Israel has engaged successful a “concerted argumentation to destruct Gaza’s healthcare system”, including “deliberate attacks connected aesculapian unit and facilities” – actions constituting warfare crimes.

Relatives of nan writer who were killed successful nan past fewer months successful Gaza: Tamer (29), his boy Tamer (5-months-old), his girl Nada (4), and his mother Suzan (47) [Courtesy of Ghada Ageel]

During nan astir caller Israeli battle connected Kamal Adwan Hospital successful Beit Lahiya, its remaining aesculapian equipment, supplies, oxygen cylinders, generators and medicines were destroyed. Thirty healthcare workers, including Dr Mohamed Obeid, caput of orthopaedic room astatine al-Awda Hospital successful Jabalia, were detained while providing attraction astatine Kamal Adwan. An chartless number of patients and displaced civilians sheltering adjacent were besides detained. The Israeli service dismantled tents, stripped men of their clothing and transported them to undisclosed locations.

The hospital’s director, Dr Hussam Abu Safiyeh, was interrogated and yet released, only to observe that his teenage boy had been executed. The haunting sound of his sound starring nan Janazah dream for his boy pierces nan psyche and serves arsenic a reminder of nan sadistic toll exacted by nan business connected Gaza’s aesculapian professionals and their families.

With fewer hospitals and schools capable to supply safety, nan remaining Palestinians are crowding into residential buildings. As a result, nan indiscriminate Israeli bombardment of residential areas is taking a staggering quality toll, sometimes erasing full extended families.

As I constitute this, nan Abu Safi location successful bluish Gaza has been struck, sidesplitting astatine slightest 10 members of nan family and injuring galore others. Those wounded and trapped beneath nan rubble are calling retired for help, but rescue teams are prevented from reaching them.

On October 29, nan Abu Nasr family’s multistorey location successful Beit Lahiya, which had go a sanctuary for much than 100 displaced individuals from nan aforesaid extended family on pinch nan astir 100 residents of nan building, became nan segment of a horrific massacre erstwhile Israel bombed it.

No ambulance aliases rescue unit was permitted to scope them, leaving neighbours — immoderate wounded themselves — to excavation done nan rubble pinch their bare hands, clinging to nan hopeless dream of rescuing survivors. Of nan much than 200 group sheltering there, only 15 survived, including 10 children, according to witnesses. More than 100 stay nether nan rubble.

The Abu Nasr family was known for their generosity, ever opening their doors to anyone successful request and sharing nan constricted resources they had. After nan massacre, a neighbour shared really nan family had been supporting displaced families who had settled adjacent pinch thing for their children. Despite nan terrible shortages successful nan northbound and nan ongoing siege, nan family’s grandma offered them blankets, nutrient and water, checking connected them each time until that tragic time erstwhile they were targeted.

This mounting toll captures a genocide successful existent clip successful which lives are not simply mislaid but extinguished without a trace, each 1 irreplaceable successful a web of relentless and interconnected loss.

While Israel is trying to erase Palestinian life successful bluish Gaza, it has not slowed down its genocidal assaults successful nan remainder of nan strip. Palestinians proceed to look bombardment moreover successful alleged safe zones.

My ain family felt nan anguish of this reality 2 weeks ago.

That day, conscionable arsenic I was preparing to time off for work, my boy cried out, “Mom, mom, that’s Aunt Majdiya connected nan news!” I rushed to nan TV room, wherever nan surface showed Majdiya – an enduring subsister of nan 1948 Nakba – sitting beside nan assemblage of her girl Suzan, 47, and clutching nan lifeless shape of her five-month-old great-grandson, Tamer. Family members encircled them.

Majdiya pinch 2 of her granddaughters earlier nan warfare successful Gaza [Courtesy of Ghada Ageel]

The study relayed that Suzan and Tamer had been killed successful a onslaught connected Nuseirat camp, an onslaught that took astatine slightest 18 lives. Later, we learned that different of Suzan’s grandchildren, four-year-old Nada, was besides killed arsenic she laic sleeping beside her.

Majdiya is now mourning nan sixth nonaccomplishment successful her family. The show of Suzan’s still assemblage and babe Tamer successful Majdiya’s arms, her look etched pinch grief, her hands trembling while she describes her loss, breaks nan heart.

The silent sorrow of Suzan’s children and siblings, gathered astir nan bodies, is unforgettable. The image of Bisan, Suzan’s daughter-in-law and nan mother of Tamer and Nada, taking nan past photographs by mobile of her children’s lifeless bodies is unbearably haunting. And past Suzan’s 17-year-old son, clinging to his mother’s assemblage and pleading to beryllium buried pinch her, a extent of sorrow that defies description.

Just a fewer months earlier her ain death, Suzan had suffered nan achy nonaccomplishment of her eldest son, Tamer, a 29-year-old taxi driver who helped displaced group move from spot to place. Tamer’s boy was calved conscionable a fewer days aft his decease and named aft him. Baby Tamer lived for 5 months earlier being killed past week while sleeping adjacent to his grandmother.

In hunt of safety, Suzan and her family had been forced to fly aggregate times. First, they sought refuge pinch my brother-in-law successful nan Hay al-Amal neighbourhood of Khan Younis. When Hay al-Amal came nether attack, they moved to al-Mawasi, but shelter was difficult to find successful nan overcrowded area. Their adjacent extremity was Rafah and past backmost to Khan Younis erstwhile Rafah was destroyed.

Exhausted but resolute, Suzan declared, “If we are to die, past fto it beryllium successful Nuseirat adjacent our home. We will unrecorded there, aliases we will dice there, but I will not dice acold from home.” So she and her family made nan intolerable travel from Khan Younis to Nuseirat camp, miraculously making it past Israeli forces blocking disconnected nan measurement betwixt al-Zawaida and Nuseirat.

Perhaps Majdiya’s only consolation successful her unimaginable condolences was that she was capable to connection Suzan and her 2 great-grandchildren a honorable burial, wrapping them successful achromatic shrouds.

So galore families, particularly successful nan north, person been denied moreover nan basal intends for honouring their dead. Some person been forced to wrap their dormant loved ones successful blankets, others successful integrative garbage bags.

This inability to supply loved ones a respectful farewell makes nan symptom and condolences overmuch much unbearable. This, of course, is an intentional erosion of dignity. The Israeli service appears to beryllium pursuing nan words of retired General Giora Eiland, nan writer of nan “General’s Plan”, who said astatine a Knesset meeting: “What matters to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is onshore and dignity, and pinch this manoeuvre, you return distant some onshore and dignity.”

This is nan achy reality of Gaza – a reality hidden from world view, yet demanding urgent attraction and action. While nan world whitethorn beryllium absorbed by nan governmental play successful nan US, Gaza faces systemic extermination, dehumanisation and brutality. To disregard this suffering is to beryllium complicit successful nan erasure of a group and their history. Palestinian group will neither hide nor forgive.

The views expressed successful this article are nan author’s ain and do not needfully bespeak Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.