Pricey President Biden,
I’m writing to you for the second time. I first wrote to you on November 4 after 47 members of my group, together with 36 from my family, have been murdered in a single assault by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF). The bloodbath occurred in Khan Younis refugee camp, positioned within the southern area of the Gaza Strip, the place individuals have been alleged to be protected, as claimed by your ally, Israel.
I’m unsure if my first letter reached you or in case your media crew made you conscious of its contents. Both means, you haven’t modified your place. Your unequivocal assist for Israel, together with by means of giant weapons transfers, implies that many extra such massacres have been dedicated along with your assist since then.
Since writing that letter, I’ve misplaced one other 220 members of my family.
Only a month in the past, on January 31, my father’s cousin, Khaled Ammar, 40, who was displaced in Khan Younis, was killed alongside his whole household when the place they have been staying in was shelled by an Israeli tank. Khaled’s spouse, Majdoleen, 38, their 4 daughters, Malak, 17, Sarah, 16, Aya, 9, and Rafeef, 7, and their two sons, Osama, 14, and Anas, 2, all perished within the assault.
Among the many victims have been additionally Khaled’s disabled brother Mohammed, 42, and their mom Fathiya, 60. Their our bodies remained unburied for over per week. Khaled’s surviving brother, Bilal, 35, made repeated requires help to the Palestinian Crimson Cross Society, however they may not dispatch a rescue crew to search for survivors as a result of the IOF didn’t grant them permission.
Majdoleen and her two younger daughters, Rafeef and Aya, got here to see me final summer time once I visited Gaza. I nonetheless bear in mind Rafeef making an attempt to trip the bike of my youngest niece, Rasha. I nonetheless bear in mind them racing down the road, consuming the sweet that they had purchased from the store of my cousin, Asaad. Their laughter nonetheless echoes in my ears.
However immediately, Mr President, there isn’t any Aya, no Rafeef, no Asaad, who was additionally killed by the IOF alongside together with his spouse, kids, mother, two sisters, sister-in-law and their kids. There are not any roads, no properties, no outlets, no laughter. Solely echoes of devastation and the deafening silence of loss.
Right now, the residential space of Khan Younis refugee camp I grew up in is decreased to rubble. Tens of hundreds of refugees, together with all surviving members of my prolonged household, are actually displaced to al Mawasi and Rafah. They’re residing in tents. They aren’t faring nicely, Mr President.
I’ve not heard from them shortly, as Israel has reduce off communication. On February 10, my nephew, Aziz, 23, walked three kilometres regardless of the hazard to succeed in the sting of Rafah to make use of the web. He instructed me that demise has handed by them many instances however spared them for now. They’re hungry, thirsty, and chilly.
There isn’t any energy, no sanitation, no drugs, no communications, or any companies accessible to them, regardless of the Worldwide Court docket of Justice ruling that Israel has to make sure the supply of assist to Gaza.
If individuals do survive the Israeli bombs, they might not survive wounds sustained within the Israeli bombardment and the explosion of communicable and non-communicable illnesses. The well being care system has collapsed beneath the Israeli onslaught.
In February, the IOF laid a siege on Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the second-largest within the Gaza Strip. There have been 300 medical employees trapped within the hospital alongside 450 sufferers and about 10,000 internally displaced individuals in search of refuge inside or within the hospital’s neighborhood.
For days, the IOF wouldn’t let a rescue crew from the World Well being Group (WHO) evacuate sufferers and employees or ship much-needed meals, medical provides and gas. All through this time, the medical employees demonstrated outstanding braveness and dedication to their sufferers, making an attempt to maintain them alive within the face of the Israeli assaults. Dr Amira Al Assouli, who rushed beneath Israeli fireplace to help one of many wounded within the hospital courtyard is one vivid instance.
Numerous individuals who sought shelter within the hospital premises have been killed or wounded; a few of these murders have been recorded on digital camera.
On February 13, the IOF despatched a younger man named Jamal Abu Al Ola, whom Israeli troopers had detained and tortured, to the hospital to inform the Palestinians sheltering there to depart. Carrying a white PPE garment and together with his fingers sure, he delivered the message after which – as instructed – headed in direction of the gate of the hospital, however was shot lifeless. His execution was documented by a journalist on the hospital and launched to the general public.
Will you order an investigation, Mr President? Will you demand that these accountable for the killing of Jamal and the numerous others at Nasser Hospital be punished or will you settle for the IOF’s model of occasions once more?
On February 15, the IOF raided the hospital, expelling hundreds of individuals amid heavy bombardment and forcibly disappearing a whole lot – no less than 70 of them medical staff. This continues a sample began in Gaza Metropolis. When the IOF raided Al Shifa Hospital, it detained a few of its employees, amongst them, Dr Mohammed Abu Salmiya, the hospital director, who stays in Israeli jail. The excuse then, as now, is that they have been looking for a Hamas command centre – a false narrative, you, Mr President, readily embraced.
Through the raid of Nasser Hospital, the slicing off of electrical energy and oxygen resulted within the deaths of no less than eight sufferers. When a WHO crew was lastly allowed to enter the hospital, its staffers described it as “a spot of demise”. After the evacuation of a whole lot of sufferers, some 25 medical staffers stayed behind to take care of the remaining 120 sufferers within the hospital with no secured provide of meals, water or drugs.
Among the many common sufferers of Nasser Hospital was my relative, Inshirah, who suffered from kidney failure and required dialysis each week. She lived within the Al Qararah space, east of Khan Younis.
When the IOF bombed her space, she moved to a camp for displaced individuals. When the IOF attacked the camp, she moved to Hay al Amal. When the latter was bombed, her kids determined to maneuver her to the neighborhood of Nasser Hospital.
Because the circumstances on the hospital deteriorated, the frequency of her dialysis periods was decreased to as soon as each 2 weeks after which to as soon as each 3 weeks, inflicting her vital struggling. When the IOF besieged the hospital, Inshirah was pressured to depart. Then we misplaced contact together with her and her kids. We have no idea if she has survived.
The overwhelming majority of chronically ailing individuals like Inshirah can’t entry correct well being care after Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s well being care system. This can be a demise sentence for them. Destroying a well being care system is a battle crime, do you know that, Mr President?
Mr President, 2.3 million individuals in Gaza live in a focus camp. They’re starved and killed relentlessly. They’re bombed of their properties, on the streets, whereas accumulating water, whereas sleeping of their tents, whereas receiving assist, and even whereas cooking. In Gaza, individuals inform me that consuming water prices blood, a loaf of bread is dipped in blood, and shifting from place to position means bleeding.
Even the act of in search of meals to feed your kids can kill you – as occurred to many dad and mom on February 28. Some 112 Palestinians have been murdered by the IOF as they tried to get flour to feed themselves and their households.
Their deaths are painfully actual. As have been the deaths of small infants like Anas, kids like Aya, moms like Majdoleen, and the aged like Fathiya. There are among the many greater than 30,000 which were recorded within the official demise toll; many extra hundreds have perished however are recorded as “lacking”.
Some 13,000 of the murdered are kids. Many are actually dying of hunger. Israel is killing 6 kids an hour. Every of those kids had a reputation, a narrative, and a dream that’s by no means to be fulfilled. Do the kids of Gaza not deserve life, Mr President?
The Palestinians are among the many most educated nations in your entire Center East. They’re a really curious individuals. Their most burning query all of them have immediately is, “why”? Why do the Palestinian individuals should endure genocide by the hands of your ally, carried out along with your weapons and cash, whilst you refuse to name for a ceasefire? Are you able to inform us why, Mr President?
The views expressed on this article are the writer’s personal and don’t essentially mirror Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
