The Israeli forces, who impose collective punishment, and ethnic cleansing in the area of the border strip between Palestine and Egypt, took control of inhabited buildings and residential towers, and forced the occupants into the small ground floor flats. This is exactly what happened to the occupants of the seven-storey tower of Burj Saleh, in the first section of Al-Quds road in Tel Sultan, where more than twenty families of average 8 members in each family, were crowded into a single small apartment.
A cordon of fire… The excessively strict measures against all international organisations from the first days of the incursion during the bombardment and destruction did not prevent the Israeli press from covering and reporting some of the realities. Yediot Ahronot published that Israeli forces had destroyed in two days only, a total of 72 homes in Al-Brazil and Al-Salaam neighbourhoods, leaving 741 Palestinians homeless. The spokesperson for UNRWA in Gaza, Adnan Abu-Hasanah, described what had happened in Tel Al-Sultan and the neighbourhoods of Rafah adjoining the border strip, as a humanitarian tragedy, in light of the huge number of civilians made homeless, around 2000 people, as a result of the complete destruction of water, electricity, telephones and sewage infrastructure. He emphasised that UNRWA urgently needed 35 million US dollars to meet this human tragedy. Abu Hasanah went on to describe the results of the destruction as a violation of international law.
Medical sources and Palestinian human rights centres reported that 22 children, the youngest Rawan Abu Zayd - 4 years old, were killed by Israeli gunfire, shells and rockets during the past few days of the incursion. The features of a different kind of human suffering have also started to surface, a precedent not seen in previous incidents, and incursions, where the Palestinian radio stations started to air pleas from anguished families and relatives looking for loved ones missing since the start of the Israeli operation, with the means of communications cut, and the sheer impossibility of reaching their places of residence whose state was unknown, in addition to the concentration of the occupation’s tanks and armour next to the ruins of their houses, and controlled by their guns… The enquiry about Taghreed Zu’rub and her husband Ghazi Barhoum, of whom nothing had been heard and nothing known, was not the only plea sent out over the ether from the radio stations of Gaza. Similar pleas were heard for children; Arij Sha’ban - 4 yrs, and others like Fathi Al-Hajj Yousef, Bassam Abu-Jazar and Abu Munir. The people fear that the attacking forces had ordered the destruction of their homes on the heads of their inhabitants, as they had done at the beginning of the incursion, where three Palestinians were martyred by the rubble of their homes, brought down on them by the Israeli bulldozers.
The civilian, Majdi Al-Akhras, compares the bleak picture of the events in Rafah with that of the massacre and destruction of Jenin, with differences in the methods and tools at times. He questioned: “How can the weak and oppressed stand accused, while the strong and unjust – meaning the forces of occupation – receive all manner of support, material and moral, and be excused for the continued aggression?”
As for Nidal Bakeir “Abu Khalil”, he says: “ We call for a lifting of the siege, because we want to honour the martyrs who are still in the flower and vegetable freezers”. Commenting on the horrific situation that had come about in the besieged and destroyed areas, he said: “ there are the chronically ill who need their medicine, there are the mounds of rubbish spreading diseases” adding “sewage has mixed in with the drinking water… We need clean water”. He called for a resolution of the worsening health situation. The disaster and tragedy did not cause the Palestinians to lose sight of their primary direction and set the priorities of their life, and human and national goals. Ahmad Azzam says: “Our cause is not one of a bread basket, or food or a blanket, our cause is one of liberty and independence”.
He adds: “We strive for freedom as all peoples of the World”, and asks: “What have our children done to deserve living in terror from the aerial bombardment and tank shells, we seek liberty for their sake, that they live equal to the children of the World”.
