Aerial view showing houses and buildings in Gaza City completely destroyed by airstrikes from Israeli occupation forces using a scorched earth style, October 10, 2023. Photo: Mohammed Salem/Reuters/File photo.
By Eva Bartlett – Nov 13, 2023
🚨⚠️Israeli tanks are 20 meters away from Al-Quds Hospital.
Direct shooting at the hospital, creating a state of extreme panic and fear among 14000 displaced people. #Gaza#AlQudsHospital #NotATarget pic.twitter.com/iRZggCcIkP— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 11, 2023
Over one month into Israel’s ongoing genocide of Gaza, the massacres of Palestinians are so frequent, widespread and endless, it is a scale of horror that even I—having experienced two horrific Israeli wars on Gaza—cannot comprehend.
Reports state that Israel has dropped an astounding 24,000 tons of explosives on the Gaza Strip, noting that is the size of two of the nuclear bombs dropped on Hiroshima.
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) November 2, 2023
To give just one example of Israel’s massacres of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, in it’s fourth week of murdering Palestinians, Israelis warplanes dropped what were said to be six one ton bombs on the densely-inhabited Jabaliya refugee camp north of Gaza City, killing and injuring over 400 Palestinians (as of first estimates).
BREAKING: JABALIA CAMP MASSACRE – 500 KILLED AND INJURED
GENOCIDE pic.twitter.com/SVBkz30oSP
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) October 31, 2023
https://twitter.com/HalaJaber/status/1719363097238905303?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1719363097238905303%7Ctwgr%5E400b2281461fbef52914299f7783aaa97b515388%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fingaza.wordpress.com%2F2023%2F11%2F11%2Fisrael-is-genociding-gaza-its-far-worse-than-anything-i-saw-during-two-brutal-israeli-wars-on-gaza%2F
The following day, Israeli warplanes bombed the same area anew, reportedly firing eight more missiles on the ravaged neighbourhood.
Today, Israel dropped six bombs, each weighing one ton, levelling an entire neighbourhood in Jabalia refugee camp, Gaza. pic.twitter.com/kkTrHHD7tX
— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) October 31, 2023
As of November 10, Israel has murdered over 11, 000 Palestinians in Gaza, and injured over 27,000, after over 35 days of relentless Israeli airstrikes on a literally imprisoned population who cannot flee by air, land or water. Keep in mind doctors are reporting they are treating severe burns and skin melting injuries that they have not seen before, making it difficult to deal with.
Still thousands more are likely dead under the rubble.
Of those killed, roughly 4,500 are children, on average Israel is killing one child every 10 minutes. According to Save The Children, October 29, more children have been killed by Israeli bombings of Gaza in three weeks than, “the number killed in armed conflict globally – across more than 20 countries – over the course of a whole year, for the last three years.”
This is a staggering statement which—if the endless images of lifeless Palestinian children being pulled out of rubble or wrapped in white shrouds doesn’t already shock you—should shock the general public.
Due to the over sixteen year long Israeli siege on Gaza, there has consistently been a dearth of the most basic necessities of life, and in particular essential medicines. When I drafted this article, that dearth was so severe that even anaesthesia is lacking, meaning children and adults alike who are fortunate enough to get medical care now at all are often being operated on without anaesthesia.
Now, the scant numbers of hospitals that were still somewhat functioning have shut down or are being bombarded.
🚨⚠️Al_Quds Hospital is at risk of closure in the upcoming 3 hours due to the depletion of fuel supplies and the non-arrival of aid.
500 patients and injured will be deprived from medical care. Those who are at the ICU and babies in incubators will lose their lives.… pic.twitter.com/IUGuNg6DBi— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 10, 2023
Reflections from two prior Israeli massacres of Gaza
I watch from afar in horror at Israel’s ongoing massacre, one which surpasses the 2009 and the 2012 Israeli wars on Gaza combined, the bloody results of both of which I documented from on the ground.
It is difficult to understand the layers of terror experienced during an Israeli bombardment campaign. In addition to the bombing itself, there is the sense of isolation, not being able to call for help if needed, not knowing if friends and family are still alive, not being able to bury or properly grieve for those who have been killed, not knowing what is going on outside of your district, not knowing when the horror will end nor when the next nearby bombing will occur.
In its December 2009-January 2009 war on Gaza, which killed over 1400 Palestinians, most of whom civilians, Israel first attacked by dropping 100 bombs simultaneously in the first minutes. In Gaza City, I went to one of the sites bombed in that first wave of attack, a mosque and police station, seeing the chaos of people scrambling to remove rubble and pull out bodies, also seeing a new missile hit roughly 150 metres away.
Massive plumes of black smoke rose everywhere around me. The main hospital, Shifa, was nonstop receiving the dead and the injured. The ICU beds were filled and doctors told me as soon as one patient died another took the place.
During Israel's horrific December 2008/January 2009 bombardment of Gaza, I rode in ambulances of Palestinian medics, primarily the Palestinian Red Crescent but also sometimes government ambulances.
THERE WERE NO WEAPONS IN THE AMBULANCES.
WE WENT TO THE AREAS HARDEST HIT BY… https://t.co/AI6benSfEC— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) October 13, 2023
I rode in Palestinian Red Crescent Society ambulances with heroic Palestinian medics who were doing their utmost to save wounded Palestinians, injured by Israeli bombing or sniping. Israel killed 23 medics, including firing a flechette (dart) bomb at the ambulance of one medic I knew and had accompanied. He was shredded by the darts, went into shock and died of his injuries. He was a volunteer medic, high school teacher by profession.
Other medics I knew came under Israeli sniper fire when—during “ceasefire hours” an Israeli sniper fired at them and then at our ambulance, a bullet puncuring one of the medic’s legs, the last of at least 14 bullets hitting the back of the ambulance as we raced away.
The night the Israeli land invasion began, shells flew dangerously close to the Red Crescent station in the district east of Jabaliya I was then based in when not in one of the ambulances. By morning it was impossible to access, and by the end of the war, we return to find it studded with machine-gun fire and blasted by shelling.
After invading the Tel al-Hawa district in the third week of its war on Gaza, Israel repeatedly bombed the Quds hospital, Israeli snipers targeting Palestinian civilians fleeing residential areas. I was with an ambulance that went to evacuate civilians from the hospital and take them to the Shifa hospital (which had no space), going back repeatedly to save Palestinian civilians, each time at risk of being shot by Israeli soldiers.
As usual, Israel openly bombs UN buildings without fear of being held accountable.
This one was a United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) warehouse in central Gaza (near the Quds Hospital in Tel al-Hawa).
Footage from RT. pic.twitter.com/uYEVIzZBWJ
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) October 16, 2023
During and after the war, I took countless testimonies of Palestinian parents whose children were deliberately murdered by Israeli soldiers including young children and infants: shot point blank, drone struck during ceasefire hours, shot by a sniper…
I'm writing an article, referencing past Israeli crimes I've written about.
(2009 Israeli war on Gaza):
This is about 2 & 7 year old girls gunned down point-blank by Israeli soldiers. Their 4 year old sister survived multiple shots, paralyzed… https://t.co/rmul8XWWEy
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) October 28, 2023
An infant was was burned alive by the White Phosphorous (WP) Israeli soldiers fired onto a civilian home in northern Gaza. Five other family members were killed by the WP and shelling. I met the mutilated survivors in Shifa hospital during the war, and followed up on their horror story afterwards, learning the entire sordid story and seeing the hate graffiti left in their home by Israeli soldiers. One included, “it will hurt more next time,” a sadistic and cruel threat.
(2009)
This is about a grandfather who was shot dead when he opened the gate to Israeli soldiers, & an infant girl, "Joy", who was shot in the abdomen by an Israeli sniper, after Israeli soldiers expelled the Palestinian family from their home.https://t.co/BlIRBDiwIV
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) October 28, 2023
I also saw terrified civilians who had been kept hostage by the Israeli army, denied food, water, medicines, and in many cases terrorized. People streaming from areas all over northern Gaza, on foot, under the bombs, seeking safety where none was to be had. I will never forget the shrill wailing of a man whose wife was caught in a fatal “second tap” bombing just minutes after the first, shrieking as he picked up the pieces of his wife and accompanied her to the morgue. [Video here]
During the November 2012 war, eight days of Israeli bombing which killed 171 Palestinians, I saw the mangled bodies of civilians, especially children, pour into the Aqsa hospital in Deir al-Balah. Two of the children were killed just hours before a ceasefire—already agreed upon—was to be implemented.
The four year old girl’s family had returned to their home, from which they’d fled, thinking it would be safe since the ceasefire was coming. She died of shrapnel to her temple, standing next to the door of her home. Nader, the fourteen year old, likewise thought the pending ceasefire meant he was safe to move, walking to a small shop to buy food for his siblings who’d only had bread the past five days. He was targeted by a precision drone strike which tore his body into the shreds I saw in the hospital.
Not only did the Israeli army massacre more Palestinians, but it also wreaked havoc on the Strip’s infrastructure, again destroying key bridges, water and sewage lines, schools, health clinics and hospitals. The near full ban on the entry of construction materials into Gaza meant rebuilding the destroyed homes, buildings and infrastructure was largely impossible.
Further, few outside of Gaza ever hear of the Israeli bombings of civilian areas when not officially warring on Gaza. I experienced them, they are a part of the psychological warfare Israel wages incessantly on Palestinians, never letting them know peace, calm, stability.
But it’s not just the bombings, it’s every aspect of life, which Israel controls, rendered impossible.
In September 2023, Save the Children reported that, “Nearly 400 children in Gaza were denied permits to go to the West Bank for critical healthcare in the first six months of 2023, leaving them without access to life-saving surgery or urgent medication.”
Israel's blocking of the entry of the most basics of life (medicines, water, electricity, food) into Gaza didn't start 2 weeks ago. It started 16+ years ago. https://t.co/erUpD6pjPo
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) October 23, 2023
This is a sadism that Palestinians have been subjected to throughout the duration of the over 16 year Israeli siege on Gaza, which I’ve written about at length, but which in summary has meant a vast increase in poverty, food insecurity, malnutrition, anaemia, stunting in growth, diabetes, treatable illnesses going untreated, water that was 95% undrinkable when (back in 2014) I wrote a lengthy overview on life in Gaza.
In that article, I highlighted how extremely sadistic the Israeli policies against imprisoned Palestinians in Gaza have been, noting that Israel, “went as far as to calculate the minimum amount of calories needed to keep Palestinians not quite fully starving.” Alive, just barely.
I also highlighted some lesser known facts: that compounding the siege is Israel’s relentless, deliberate, deadly firing on Palestinian farmers and fishers, under the pretext of “security”. Given that in my three years in Gaza I routinely accompanied farmers while they were on land and came under Israeli gunfire, I can state definitively that in those many, many, many experiences of coming under Israeli gunfire, none of us were armed: not myself, not the elderly grandmothers, not the children, not the paid labourers. They posed zero threat to Israel other than simply existing.
This is Israeli policy. Destroy every means for Palestinians to earn a living or bring food to the table. pic.twitter.com/9xGn1sal0I
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) November 5, 2023
It’s GENOCIDE
A senior Israeli security official has told Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot that they believe Israel has killed 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7th.
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) November 5, 2023
When Israel’s 2009 war on Gaza finally ended after 23 days, I thought it was the worst bombardment Palestinians had endured. I was wrong. The scenes coming out of Gaza since October 7 are of hideous, horrific, an endless onslaught of Israel murdering civilians in the most sadistic ways, entire families, hundreds of people sheltering where they thought they would be safe, on and on…
https://twitter.com/VanessaBeeley/status/1720033644553687181?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1720033644553687181%7Ctwgr%5E775ef16f78caf241894d6eaa8f6c9c2ac8cfecaa%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fingaza.wordpress.com%2F2023%2F11%2F11%2Fisrael-is-genociding-gaza-its-far-worse-than-anything-i-saw-during-two-brutal-israeli-wars-on-gaza%2F
A senior Israeli security official has told Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot that they believe Israel has killed 20,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7th.
— Lowkey (@Lowkey0nline) November 5, 2023
Al Jazeera has released footage from the Saftawi School massacre, and the visuals are profoundly heart-wrenching.
Pieces of dead bodies scattered, blood staining the school's walls. Medical sources estimate that 20 to 30 Palestinians including children were slaughtered https://t.co/MVo5QGGEml pic.twitter.com/Mnro12m2Q4
— Younis Tirawi | يونس (@ytirawi) November 3, 2023
Intensification of the Israeli attacks on Gaza hospitals last night. Many targeted simultaneously. Tens of thousands of patients and displaced Palestinians who are sheltering at risk. A war in which destroying hospitals is a key military objective pic.twitter.com/lFG3LSCNVI
— Nicola Perugini (@PeruginiNic) November 10, 2023
Alastair Crook – "over 80% of Israelis, left and right, share those sentiments about wanting to erase all Palestinians from Gaza. I mean eradicate all #Palestinians from Gaza."#GazaHolocaust pic.twitter.com/T1uXQjvFZ9
— vanessa beeley (@VanessaBeeley) November 11, 2023
Further, Israel has killed at least 46 journalists in the Gaza Strip since October 7, while another three remain missing.
According to updates from Gaza’s Ministry of Health,111 medical staff have been killed, 16 (of 35) hospitals out of service due to bombing and fuel shortages, 39 ambulances destroyed or out of service.
https://twitter.com/QudsNen/status/1723256952891777526?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1723256952891777526%7Ctwgr%5E775ef16f78caf241894d6eaa8f6c9c2ac8cfecaa%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fingaza.wordpress.com%2F2023%2F11%2F11%2Fisrael-is-genociding-gaza-its-far-worse-than-anything-i-saw-during-two-brutal-israeli-wars-on-gaza%2F
🚨Only 7 out of 18 PRCS ambulance vehicles are functioning in Gaza and the northern regions.
🚑 The remaining vehicles are at risk of completely ceasing operations in the coming hours due to fuel depletion.
✋🔴Our teams are witnessing numerous casualties and wounded… pic.twitter.com/euLhbUHbO6
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 11, 2023
On November 1, the Ministry of Health announced that Gaza’s sole cancer treatment hospital has ceased operating due to Israeli bombings and the complete lack of fuel, putting 70 patients immediately at risk.
Israel demanded the (impossible) evacuation of Shifa and twelve other hospitals, threatening to bomb them. Shifa hospital—which Israel already bombed in July 2014—is under threats of Israeli bombings and is otherwise precariously close to shutting down.
Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert has countless times over the years made trips to Gaza to work alongside Palestinian doctors in Shifa hospital, particularly during Israeli bombardments of the Gaza Strip. I met him briefly in January 2009, at Shifa Hospital when arriving there with Palestinian medics and the injured Palestinians they had retrieved.
In a recent interview, he addressed the Israeli claims of Shifa being a “command centre” for Palestinian resistance.
“I’ve been working in Shifa for 16 years, in very active periods. I was able to walk freely around, I take lots of pictures, I video film, I’ve been all over it. I’ve never been restricted, nobody has ever controlled my picture & documentation material,” Gilbert said. “In accordance with the Geneva Conventions, you can’t bomb hospitals unless they have very clear military functions.”
In their October 29 update, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted that Israeli bombing had targeted the vicinity of the Shifa and Quds hospitals in Gaza city and the Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza, noting the bombings, “followed renewed calls by the Israeli military to evacuate these facilities immediately.”
Keep in mind that Shifa and Quds are the two main hospitals in Gaza City, combined they now house over 60,000 displaced Palestinian civilians who’ve fled Israeli bombing in their home regions. Calling for their evacuation and proceeding to bomb around them are absolutely criminal acts that meet the definition of war crimes.
🚨Israeli Occupation forces opened fire on the intensive care unit at Al-Quds hospital.#AlQudsHospital #NotATarget #Gaza pic.twitter.com/ocIk0d8XLb
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 10, 2023
#BREAKING
Israeli occupation foreces asked the displaced Palestinian people to leave Al-Nasr Hospital in #Gaza City a short while ago after its tanks surrounded it. After the displaced people left the hospital, it carried out a treacherous operation and fired heavy bullets at… pic.twitter.com/OgpH0W8biA— Marwa Osman || مروة عثمان (@Marwa__Osman) November 10, 2023
With the whole world watching, Israel continues to unabashedly bombard the Gaza Strip’s main hospitals. Most are out of commission for want of electricity or fuel to run generators.
“No one can get out from the Shifa hospital. No one can come in. The people who tried to evacuate this morning were being shot in the streets.”
Dr Marwan Abu Sada, Head of Surgery at Al Shifa Hospital, describes horrifying scenes as Israel attacks the Gaza hospital this morning. pic.twitter.com/gm7X2NqSFD— Medical Aid for Palestinians (@MedicalAidPal) November 11, 2023
On November 10, journalist Marwa Osman reported: “Israel targeted Al-Shifa Hospital with U.S-made R9X non-explosive missiles, as the missile turns into blades that fly over a distance of 100 meters to cut off human limbs in a criminal scene that is chilling to the bone. The U.S. regime is a primary accomplice to Zionist Israel in this Genocide.”
Doctor Mads Gilbert, in a video published November 10, said:
“We just got the report from Shifa Hospital that the Israeli attack forces have placed snipers around the hospital, and these snipers are shooting through the windows of the hospital, killing, targeting, damaging health care workers trying to save lives inside.
One report says a nurse approaching the incubator in the neo-natal unit was killed while trying to care for the babies. The oxygen supply to the incubators are now running out, they’re destroyed and shut down.
The doctors report, ‘We are minutes away from death as the world is watching.‘”
BREAKING –
This message just in from Shifa:Shifa hospital completely besieged.
Surrounded by Israeli attack army.
Snipers are shooting through the windows.
Killing.
We are minutes away from death as the world is watching. pic.twitter.com/EkOTRUUqXn— Dr. Mads Gilbert (@DrMadsGilbert) November 11, 2023
The ICU of Al Shifa hospital has been bombed. Staff have been shot at and wounded. Power has gone, staff are having to hand ventilate patients, and babies in neonatal ICU are starting to die from lack of oxygen.
Israel's war on hospitals must end.https://t.co/dIJN4RUpmK pic.twitter.com/KodzpgTFFF
— Medical Aid for Palestinians (@MedicalAidPal) November 11, 2023
According to the Palestinian Red Crescent:
“Israeli tanks are 20 meters away from Al-Quds Hospital. Direct shooting at the hospital, creating a state of extreme panic and fear among 14000 displaced people.”
Israel has made abudantly clear–by words & by bombings–its intent to genocide Gaza & push the 2.4 million (-10,000+ recently murdered) out of Gaza for good.
Western politicians in their vile manner condem Palestinians to death.https://t.co/rgFiFE4DKI
— Eva Karene Bartlett (@EvaKBartlett) November 7, 2023
At this point, anyone arguing that Israel is not committing genocide and ethnic cleansing is either ignorant or wilfully complicit. A week ago, statements from the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights specified concern, “that war crimes are being committed. Nowhere is safe in Gaza. Compelling people to evacuate in these circumstances… and while under a complete siege raises serious concerns over forcible transfer, which is a war crime.”
Craig Mokhiber, the Director of the UN’s New York office, resigned from his position in protest and disgust, stating, “Once again, we are seeing a genocide unfolding before our eyes, and the organization that we serve appears powerless to stop it. As someone who has investigated human rights in Palestine since the 1980s, lived in Gaza as a UN human rights advisor in the 1990s, and carried out several human rights missions to the country before and since, this is deeply personal to me.”
The Director of the UN's New York office just resigned after thirty years at the organisation over the UN's handling of the ongoing genocide of Palestinians.
The entirety of his resignation letter is a necessary read but this first page blew me away. pic.twitter.com/3y9NwgIofP
— ayan. (@artan_ayan) October 31, 2023
Regarding the question of whether Israel is committing genocide, Mokhiber, wrote, “The current wholesale slaughter of the Palestinian people…coupled with explicit statements of intent by leaders in the Israeli government and military, leaves no room for doubt or debate….This is a textbook case of genocide.”
I echo Mokhiber’s sentiments, including that having lived three years in Gaza and seen the endless, needless, preventable suffering of Palestinians, this is deeply personal to me. I no longer know whether friends and people I knew a decade ago when I still lived there are alive after such relentless Israeli bombardment all over of Gaza.
But even if it is not personal for you, the slaughter now is so atrocious and endless that I hope it does become so. If this were being done by any country except Israel, the whole world would be outraged.
It's becoming clear that Israeli forces massacred their own people on October 7. In this video, Apache pilots are shown firing on everyone.
So no beheaded babies, no raped, and no Palestinians massacring Israelis, but still the Gaza Holocaust and ethnic cleansing must continue. pic.twitter.com/sucVL5F7r9
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) November 9, 2023
Israel has spent a month pounding Gaza into rubble and filling the streets with children's blood. With European and American weapons, and European and American support. Still @vonderleyen cannot even say the word: "ceasefire." This isn't just Israel's genocide. It's Europe's too. https://t.co/CtuWywBp2g pic.twitter.com/pWsrpSUIgU
— Clare Daly (@ClareDalyMEP) November 10, 2023
🚨Urgent Appeal:🔊
The @PalestineRCS appeals to the international community and humanitarian institutions to intervene immediately and urgently to protect their crews working in AlQuds Hospital and about 500 patients and more than 14000 displaced, mostly women and children.
— PRCS (@PalestineRCS) November 11, 2023
It’s time for a new oil embargo.
Saudi Arabia is hosting an unprecedented summit of Middle Eastern leaders to discuss Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza.
America is complicit in this genocide.
If there isn’t an immediate ceasefire and infusion of humanitarian aid, Saudi Arabia…
— Scott Ritter (@RealScottRitter) November 11, 2023
https://twitter.com/afshinrattansi/status/1720205912088928672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1720205912088928672%7Ctwgr%5E7d0adccd860347df7e8125cacc0732a2d05545b0%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fingaza.wordpress.com%2F2023%2F11%2F11%2Fisrael-is-genociding-gaza-its-far-worse-than-anything-i-saw-during-two-brutal-israeli-wars-on-gaza%2F
The UN workers are Hamas
The journalists are Hamas
The fishing boats are Hamas
The bakeries are Hamas
The ambulances are Hamas
The hospitals are Hamas
The refugee camps are Hamas
The water pipes are Hamas
The children are Hamas
The babies in incubators are Hamas https://t.co/39RrXLgUEl— yasmin el nagar 🇮🇪 🇵🇸 (@wild_situation) November 11, 2023
(In Gaza)
Eva Bartlett
Eva Karene Bartlett is a Canadian activist and blogger who covers the Middle East, particularly Palestine and Syria. She writes op-eds for the Russian-funded television network RT. Bartlett describes herself as an "independent writer and rights activist.
