Young Palestinian was desperate to escape Gaza instead the world watched him burn to death

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 23 October 2024

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NEW YORK - Since Israel launched its retaliation for the Hamas-led attack just over a year ago, Shaaban al-Dalou, 19, had pleaded on social media for help getting out of the Gaza Strip.
A young man in a black jacket wearing earbuds in front of the rubble of a building.

Instead, the world watched him burn to death.

A video of Shaaban al-Dalou burning to death after an Israeli strike at a hospital has stoked criticism from Israel’s allies and highlighted the plight of people trapped in Gaza.

He was the son his mother boasted about: He memorized the entire Quran as a boy, and rose to the top of his university class. He wanted to become a doctor. But most of all, Shaaban al-Dalou dreamed of escape.

Mr al-Dalou wrote impassioned pleas on social media, posted videos from his family’s small plastic tent and even launched a GoFundMe page calling out to the world for help getting out of the Gaza Strip.

Mr. al-Dalou, 19, was identified by his family as the young man helplessly waving his arms, engulfed in flames, in a video that has become a symbol of the horrors of war for Gazans, trapped inside their blockaded enclave as the international community looks on.

On Oct. 14, Israel said it conducted a “precision strike” on a Hamas command centre operating near Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al Balah, a coastal city in central Gaza. Dozens of families like the Dalous, forced to flee their homes, had set up tents in a parking lot inside the hospital compound. They had hoped that international laws forbidding most attacks on medical facilities would ensure their safety.

The Israeli military said that the fire that erupted afterward was probably caused by “secondary explosions,” without specifying what that meant. It added that “the incident is under review.” This means nothing will happen.

Israel’s army has regularly forced captured Palestinians to conduct life-threatening reconnaissance missions to avoid putting Israeli soldiers at risk in Gaza, according to the New York Times investigation.

GAZA development knocked back by 70 years, says UN

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Written by Super User

Category: MENA

Published: 23 October 2024

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ISREALI OCCUPIED GAZA - The war in Gaza has devastated the Palestinian economy, which is now 35% smaller than it was at the start of Israel's invasion a year ago, the United Nations' development agency said on Tuesday.

UNDP said quality of life indicators such as health and education had been knocked back 70 years to the 1950s.

In northern Gaza, residents said Israeli forces had besieged hospitals, schools, and other shelters housing displaced families and ordered them to leave and head south. They said forces detained dozens of men.

Footage obtained by Reuters showed dozens of residents fleeing their area, carrying some of their belongings.

Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, said medical services had completely collapsed.

"There are no blood units or tubes to drain bleeding from the chest. Most of the medical supplies are not available," he said in a statement.

"People around the hospital are being asked to evacuate, and those who evacuated were shot on the way...the situation is more than catastrophic."

The death toll in more than a year of war in Gaza is approaching 43,000, according to the latest health ministry figures, and most of the 2.3 million population is displaced, many in makeshift shelters.

The Israeli offensive was triggered by the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing some 1,200 people and taking around 250 hostages into Gaza.

Israeli forces burn Gaza's Indonesian Hospital as they tighten siege on north of enclave

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Category: MENA

Published: 22 October 2024

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ISRAELI OCCUPIED GAZA - Israeli forces set fire to northern Gaza's Indonesian Hospital on Monday, one of only three partially functional hospitals out of 10 in the area, the enclave's health ministry said, after witnesses reported the army had also burnt down buildings where thousands of people had been taking shelter.

At least 200,000 people have been trapped in Jabalia camp for 17 days without aid, food and water.

The hospital in Beit Lahia, north of Jabalia, was "directly targeted", the ministry said, adding that its generators were bombed which cut off electricity and caused "patients to die after being disconnected from oxygen devices". With severe restrictions on their movements, hospital staff are having to bury the dead inside the medical complex, which remains under siege.

"Even the option of prioritising the wounded is no longer available, as many of the injured were left to bleed to death yesterday due to the number of casualties,” the ministry said.

Yousri Qarmout, 37, told The National that Israeli forces set fire to buildings in Beit Lahia in which people were sheltering, “The occupation hasn't stopped using the tactics of burning and demolition throughout this operation. Every day, we see plumes of smoke rising everywhere.

“Yesterday, the Israeli army set fire to many buildings around the Indonesian Hospital, a well-known area with many shelters. The fires hasn't stopped and the smoke reached most parts of northern Gaza, while the sounds of explosions continue without a break.”

Iman Wadi, 31, is among the displaced Palestinians who had to flee from one of the shelters surrounding the Indonesian Hospital. She arrived in Gaza city with her mother, child and three sisters on Saturday evening after Israeli forces stormed their shelter. “The soldiers arrived at dawn on Saturday,” Ms Wadi told The National.

“Two hours later, they ordered all the young men and boys over 10 to come down from the rooms to the yard. They took them to unknown locations at gunpoint, beating and abusing them.”

Ms Wadi's father, brother and husband were among those detained. "They burnt the shelters near the Indonesian Hospital and warned us not to look right or left, or our lives would be at risk," she said.

Hundreds of thousands of people in northern Gaza remain under siege. At least 200,000 people have been trapped in northern Gaza's Jabalia refugee camp for 17 days, where no aid has been allowed in. Movement is severely restricted and conditions are deteriorating daily. Just three of northern Gaza's 10 hospitals are even partially functional.

Rami Youssef, 26, and his family in Jabalia's west are among those surrounded by Israeli tanks. They have no access to food or water and the bombing is relentless. “There is absolutely no way to escape; anyone who tries to enter or leave the camp through any route other than the one designated by the army is killed on the spot,” he told The National.

The UN said it has been requesting access to the north of the strip since Friday from Israeli authorities but has not received it.

“Several of our neighbours left in the past few days but we lost contact with them," Mr Youssef said. "They neither made it to Gaza city nor returned home. It’s likely the [Israeli] army killed them along the way. No one knows their fate.”