Attacks on Northern Gaza

3 Jan 2025: @ezzingaza

This evening, an Israeli army officer called a resident of a displacement camp in Deir al-Balah, central Gaza, instructing him to evacuate in preparation for an airstrike. Panic spread among the camp’s residents as they hastily fled, gathering at a safe distance to await the inevitable destruction. Moments later, a missile struck the camp, reducing tents and belongings to rubble. As some residents cautiously moved to return, the officer called again, warning them to stay away because the camp would soon be targeted with another explosive device. Now it’s midnight, and the people of the camp are still waiting outside in the cold, where the temperature hovers at 8°C. Only after the next strike will they try to rebuild their modest shelters and return to whatever remains of their fragile refuge. Meanwhile, on the same evening, the Israeli army sent a detained civilian to Al-Awda Hospital in northern Gaza, delivering a written warning that read, “You must evacuate immediately,” without offering any safe route for escape. Patients and hospital staff are now left in limbo, unsure whether to remain or to risk fleeing as they await either clarification or a strike that could level the hospital and claim every life inside. Such is life in Gaza: an existence trapped in a perpetual cycle of dread and anticipation, dreading what may come next, and waiting for the unknown. Here, a future can be erased in an instant, at the whim of even the youngest soldier in the Israeli army.