On Monday, day 276 of Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza, Israeli forces continued their assault on the entire civilian population of Gaza. On Monday morning, the Israeli occupation army stormed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) headquarters in Gaza.
This comes as UNRWA remains one of the only sources of food and water for Palestinians, as well as one of the only sources of information getting out to the world about what is happening in Gaza. This attack comes just two days after Israeli forces deliberately targeted and killed five of the most effective and wide-reaching journalists in Gaza.
The Israeli occupation forces continue their ground incursion into large areas southwest of Gaza City, amid a large displacement of citizens and the siege of other families in several neighborhoods.
Local sources said that the occupation forces stormed the headquarters of UNRWA in Gaza, after carrying out a series of violent raids and firing smoke bombs in its vicinity, and they are still stationed there.
The Wafa news agency reported that dozens of snipers from the occupation soldiers are on top of some of the tall buildings surrounding the UNRWA headquarters.
Anadolu news agency reported that the Israeli occupation’s military vehicles penetrated the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, the “industrial” area, and the southern outskirts of the al-Rimal neighborhood, under heavy fire cover from aircraft and artillery.
The reporter added that huge explosions and shelling by warplanes and heavy artillery have been targeting the east, center and west of Gaza City since dawn on Monday, for the first time in more than 3 months, when the occupation army carried out a military operation in Al-Shifa Hospital and its surroundings at the end of March.
Rescue and ambulance teams are still trying to reach the injured and the deceased to evacuate them, in light of the difficulty of moving around the city due to the intensity of the continuous shelling.
Witnesses said that thousands of citizens were displaced from the southwest of the city towards the northwest and spent the night in the streets without shelter, and dozens of families are still besieged in their homes in the areas of penetration, with the shelling and shooting continuing at anyone moving in the streets.
🚨Breaking :Israeli military warplanes are bombing the Soldier Tower in the Al-Rimal neighborhood in central #Gaza City.
Intense bombing has continued since last night, and families displaced in the university area are still under siege with their fate unknown. pic.twitter.com/ufkYxX0L6z— Nour Naim| نُور (@NourNaim88) July 8, 2024
The ground military operation comes hours after the occupation army issued orders to evacuate the Shujaiya, Tuffah and Daraj neighborhoods east of the city and move to the western areas that it attacked at dawn.
In the central Gaza Strip, civil defense teams recovered 4 bodies and 2 injured people after the Israeli occupation warplanes bombed a residential apartment belonging to the Eid family in Al-Bureij camp.
In the southern city of Rafah, the occupation army continued its ground military operations in the city for the third consecutive month, as it continues to blow up buildings in the central and western areas of the city.
“There’s a lot of desperate people. There’s a lot of hungry people. There’s a lot of tired people.”@UNWateridge tells @CBCNews that, amid forced displacement, dire living conditions and intense heat, families in #Gaza are exhausted and do not have what they need to survive. pic.twitter.com/cwZJBRZ5ia
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 8, 2024
The Speaker of the Palestinian National Council, Rawhi Fattouh, said in a statement that the continued targeting of UNRWA headquarters by the occupation forces is blatant evidence of their disregard for international legitimacy represented by the United Nations and its headquarters, and an attack on the Security Council and international community resolutions. It comes within an old plan to abolish UNRWA, end the Palestinians’ refugee status, and stop services and relief for about two million Palestinians who were expelled and displaced from their homes.
He called on the international community and the Security Council to issue binding resolutions to the far-right Israeli government to stop its aggression against UNRWA headquarters, especially those that house thousands of displaced persons.
He added that the air strikes and continuous belts of fire that Gaza City is witnessing aim to criminally destroy, annihilate and ethnically cleanse the remaining unarmed civilian residents of the city’s neighborhoods .
updated from:
Day 276 of Israel’s Assault on Gaza: Forced Displacement, Renewed Bombing
On Monday, day 276 of the Israeli assault on the entire civilian population of the Gaza Strip, Israeli forces continued their bombardment of Palestinian civilian sites.
In addition, the Israeli occupation forces issued new forced displacement orders for tens of thousands of residents in the center of the city of Gaza, just minutes before it carried out a new massacre against a family residing in one of the targeted neighborhoods.
After forcing thousands of residents out of eastern Gaza on Sunday, most of whom headed to the west of the city with only what they could carry on their backs, Israeli forces then invaded western Gaza City at dawn on Monday, leaving the forcibly displaced Palestinians with no place to go.
Medical sources reported that dozens of civilians were killed and injured in the Al-Daraj and Al-Tuffah neighborhoods and the Old City as a result of the occupation’s bombing of those areas in the pre-dawn hours on Monday.
Eyewitnesses said that the Israeli occupation warplanes launched a series of violent raids on the mentioned areas, and the sounds of violent explosions were heard shaking Gaza City, and their echoes were heard in the northern and central areas of the Strip.
Israel is bombing Gaza City right now like never before. For us, each day is like day 1 of this Israeli genocide pic.twitter.com/2aJRHq08CE
— Ahmed Masoud (@masoud_ahmed) July 7, 2024
According to Al Jazeera, Israeli occupation forces penetrated southwest of Gaza City at dawn on Monday, causing a large displacement of residents, while neighborhoods in the city and in the center of the Strip were subjected to intensive raids that left many people killed and wounded.
Al Jazeera’s correspondent said that Israeli ground troops, including many tanks and armored vehicles, advanced into the university and industrial areas on the southern outskirts of the Tal al-Hawa neighborhood, south of Gaza City, noting a large mass of people displaced from their homes and tents, walking on the street from the vicinity of the industrial area.Al-Sabra and Tal Al-Hawa neighborhoods, trying to find anyplace safe from the bombs and tanks.
The reporter added that the Israeli occupation forces are besieging a number of families in the university and industrial areas. The Tal al-Hawa neighborhood had been known, before October 7th, as the ‘Paris of Gaza’ with outdoor shopping plazas and cafes, and was home to many university professors and professionals, along with their families.
The Israeli military has frequently targeted the neighborhood in the 276 days of its assault on Gaza, specifically targeting university and government officials – the intellectual and economic elite of Gaza.
The following video shows the displaced Palestinians in the northern part of Gaza City:
The following post shows the order issued by the Israeli forces to people in eastern Gaza City – ordering them to another area, where the Israeli military then kettled them in and bombed them.
It’s unbelievable..
Israeli occupation forces ordered people to move from eastern neighbourhoods of #Gaza_City to the western neighbourhoods, then, they attacked and invaded the western neighbourhoods and blockaded displaced people there! pic.twitter.com/rWGZUBXLcL
— Motasem A Dalloul (@AbujomaaGaza) July 8, 2024
Meanwhile, patients in the few remaining hospitals in Gaza are facing a severe lack of medical supplies, equipment and medicine. The medical director of Kamal Edwan hospital in Gaza warned Monday morning that Palestinian children on respirators in the hospital will die within hours due to the lack of fuel in the hospital.
Over 12,000 wounded people trapped in the Gaza Strip still require urgent medical attention to survive. In addition, 14,000 patients, of whom 10,000 suffer from cancer or other serious diseases, are threatened with imminent death if they do not travel for treatment. Since the Israeli destruction and occupation of the Rafah border crossing between Gaza and Egypt on May 7th, just 21 individuals have been permitted to leave the imprisoned Gaza Strip.
According to Euro-Med Monitor, the collapse of health system and the closure of 34 out 36 hospitals due to the systematic Israeli attacks have left the two remaining hospitals only partially operational, and without access to medical supplies or medications. Medical teams there are suffering from extreme fatigue after working nonstop for nine months.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said its teams in Gaza were exhausted after nine months of non-stop work, calling for its members in the West Bank to be allowed to replace their colleagues in Gaza.
According to Al Jazeera, following what US and Israeli intelligence officers called ‘positive developments’ in the negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leadership in Doha, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement that he would refuse to agree to any deal that did not allow Israeli forces to continue dropping bombs on the people of Gaza. This statement came as tens of thousands of Israelis continue nightly protests in Tel Aviv demanding his resignation, and accusing him of sabotaging peace negotiations because “this war is the only thing keeping him in power”. Opposition leader Yair Lapid criticized what he called Netanyahu’s “provocative statements” at this stage of the negotiations.
The Israeli occupation forces have continued their aggression on the Gaza Strip by land, sea and air since October 7, 2023, resulting in the killing of 38,153 Palestinians, the majority of whom are children and women, and the injury of 87,828 others, while thousands of victims are still under the rubble and on the roads, where ambulance and civil defense crews cannot reach them.
