Over the past week I’ve been talking with Joe Catron, one of the 9 activists doing shifts in Shifa hospital, in hopes of their presence being a deterrent to it being bombed, and regularly updating from Gaza.
Some nights ago, after Shujaiya had been erased, wiped off the map, the focus turned to other border areas. “They’re ethnically cleansing certain areas, like in the east, 1948 style….” Joe said.
Later, after Khoza’a had been pounded, decimated, and the Zios had turned their focus back to Gaza City, where internally displaced Palestinians from all over Gaza were attempting to seek refuge, Joe said: “We’ve had continuous airstrikes throughout the night. I said before that they were concentrating on the east, now it seems they are concentrating on Gaza.
From Shifa, Joe noted the refugees who’ve covered the grounds outside. “People have erected tents, Nakba-style.”
Not only is Shifa Gaza’s main hospital, it is now a base for some of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians terrorized out of their homes, homes which for many no longer exist. And it is under threat of being targeted itself.
Should the thought of targeting a hospital seem so extreme and unbelievable, note that already the Zionist perpetrators of genocide have:
-bombed and damaged at least 13 hospitals and 10 clinics (including destroying the Wafa hospital for invalids and destroying part of the Aqsa hospital in Deir al Balah), as of Aug 1 [Israel shells Youssef al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah]
-killed 16 medics, targeted 13 ambulances [Israel bombs Gaza ambulance as Friday death toll surpasses 100]
Joe, who has been in Gaza for roughly the past three years, and who in Nov 2012 was there (as was I, in Deir al Balah) documenting the Zionist crimes, said this time round is basically the worst Gaza has seen, to paraphrase.
“I don’t think in 2008 and 2012 we saw this kind of ethnic cleansing of the Gaza Strip, ordering vast areas of Gaza 43% at last count… Beit Hanoun, Shujaiya, ….
Shujaiya is a wasteland, some buildings are standing, some are not…at least they’re all damaged, the streets are rubble…”
And that was before Rafah was Shujaiya-ed…
“Every Palestinian and every supporter in Gaza is behind the Resistance,” he said.
As am I.
Shujaiya [the Independent]
Khuza’a
Filed under: international solidarity, Zionists wars on Gaza