Northern Gaza: the government’s disconcerting inaction

As a new phase of Palestinian genocide begins in the northern Gaza Strip, the Belgian government continues to turn a blind eye to ongoing crimes.

Live genocide

For over a year, the whole world has witnessed first-hand the genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza. On October 6, Israel entered an unprecedented phase of violence in northern Gaza, and there is no doubt that civilians are being targeted in these attacks. Gradually, Israel is emptying the region of its inhabitants. At this stage, the Israeli government is no longer even pretending, and is deliberately attacking civilians and hospitals.

The Israeli army is once again conducting a major offensive in northern Gaza, mainly in and around the town of Jabalia. Some 400,000 people are currently trapped there. Israel is using war planes and drones, but there is also a ground offensive, with soldiers penetrating the city’s neighborhoods. The Jabalia refugee camp and residential areas are being bombarded at random. At least 150 civilians, many of them children, have already been killed.

Northern Gaza trapped

Now Israel is calling on Palestinians to evacuate to the south of Gaza, towards the humanitarian zone. This area is already overcrowded and living conditions are disastrous. According to Israel, this evacuation is necessary to avoid civilian casualties. However, anyone attempting to leave Jabalia is shot dead by Israeli soldiers. Even if they wanted to, evacuation is impossible for the inhabitants of northern Gaza. According to humanitarian organizations, 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 Gazans 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 in the humanitarian zone to the south.

Like the other two hospitals in northern Gaza, our partner AWDA’s hospital, one of the few with a partially operational maternity ward, is suffering from the intensification of Israeli violence. Women who came from the south to give birth at Al Awda hospital can no longer return to their families, as the road between Gaza City and Jabalia is completely blocked by the Israeli army. What’s more, Al Awda hospital is overwhelmed by the large number of new casualties arriving every day. At the same time, 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.

“Evacuation is a death sentence”.

Currently, an Israeli drone is flying over the hospital, firing randomly at civilians. Despite this, the AWDA team remains on site. “Even if there were only one patient left in the whole of northern Gaza, we would not evacuate,” interim director Mohammed Salha recently told us. “For the seriously injured and for pregnant women requiring Caesarean sections, evacuation is a death sentence,” adds Salha. In addition, Israel offers no solution for the sick and wounded in northern Gaza. The army orders hospitals to evacuate, but there is nowhere safe for victims to go.

The situation in northern Gaza is becoming untenable. The silence of our world leaders is deafening. The Belgian government is also guilty of what is happening in Gaza. This is why we are asking our government once again: do you wish to continue your complicity in the first live-documented genocide 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 atrocious situation, or will you continue to look the other way?

Our leaders may be trying to ignore the situation, but we citizens can continue to remind them of the urgent need for action. Mobilization works!

Keep up the pressure, boycott pro-Israeli brands and banks, and join us on Sunday October 20 in Brussels for the national demonstration.