As a new phase of the Palestinian genocide begins in the north of the Gaza Strip, the Belgian Government continues to turn a blind eye to the crimes currently being committed.
Genocide Live
For over a year now, the whole world has been a direct witness to the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. On 6 October, Israel entered an unprecedented phase of violence in northern Gaza, and there is no doubt that civilians are being targeted in these attacks. Israel is gradually emptying the region of its inhabitants. At this stage, the Israeli government is no longer even pretending and is deliberately targeting civilians and hospitals.
The Israeli army is once again carrying out a major offensive in northern Gaza, mainly in and around the town of Jabalia. Around 400,000 people are currently stranded there. Israel is using fighter jets and drones, but there is also a ground offensive, with soldiers having entered the city’s neighbourhoods. The Jabalia refugee camp and residential neighbourhoods are being bombed indiscriminately. At least 150 civilians, including many children, have already been killed.
Northern Gaza trapped
Israel is calling on Palestinians to evacuate to the south of Gaza, towards the humanitarian zone. This zone is already overcrowded and living conditions there are appalling. According to Israel, this evacuation is necessary to prevent civilian casualties. Yet anyone currently attempting to leave Jabalia is being shot down by Israeli soldiers. Even if they wanted to, evacuation is therefore impossible for residents of northern Gaza. According to humanitarian organisations, including Médecins Sans Frontières, no one has managed to reach the humanitarian zone in the south from northern Gaza over the past week. 400,000 residents of Gaza are therefore trapped in Jabalia, completely surrounded by the Israeli army, with no means of escape. Meanwhile, Israel continues to drop bombs on Palestinian civilians in Jabalia, the rest of northern Gaza, and even within the humanitarian zone in the south.
Just like the other two hospitals in northern Gaza, our partner AWDA’s hospital, one of the few hospitals to have a partially operational maternity ward, is suffering as a result of the escalation in Israeli violence. Women who had travelled from the south to give birth at Al Awda Hospital are now unable to return to their families because the road between Gaza City and Jabalia is completely blocked by the Israeli army. Furthermore, Al Awda Hospital is overwhelmed by the large number of new casualties flooding in every day. This is happening whilst the hospital is facing severe shortages of medicines, medical equipment and fuel. These shortages are getting worse all the time, as the Israeli army is blocking the passage of humanitarian aid.
«Eviction is a death sentence»
At the moment, an Israeli drone is flying over the hospital, firing indiscriminately at civilians. Despite this, the AWDA team is staying put. « Even if there were only one patient left in the whole of northern Gaza, we would not evacuate », acting director Mohammed Salha recently told us. « For the seriously injured and for pregnant women requiring a caesarean section, evacuation is a death sentence », adds Salha. Furthermore, Israel is offering no solution for the sick and wounded in northern Gaza. The army is ordering hospitals to evacuate, but there is nowhere safe for the victims to go.
The situation in northern Gaza is becoming untenable. The silence of our world leaders is deafening. The Belgian government, too, bears responsibility for what is happening in Gaza. That is why we are once again asking our government: do you wish to continue your complicity in the first genocide to be documented in real time in our history, or will you finally take action after more than a year? Will you finally put pressure on the Israeli apartheid state to put an end to this appalling situation, or will you continue to look the other way?
Our leaders may be trying to ignore the situation, but we, as citizens, can keep reminding them that action is urgently needed. Mobilisation works!
Keep up the pressure, boycott pro-Israeli brands and banks, and join us on Sunday 20 October in Brussels, at the national event.
