ReutersWARNING: This article contains graphic descriptions of death and violence
The murdered man’s hands were covered in dust, and his fingers and wrists were stained with blood.
Like many other victims of Israeli airstrikes, they were buried under rubble – this time in the northern city of Gaza.
A teenage boy was rescued from the first floor of a collapsed building. When his feet and legs were exposed, it looked like he was still alive.
But then the entire body was rescued and fell lifeless into the arms of the rescuer.
They leaned forward, letting the boy pass through the window below and into the waiting arms of another group of men.
In the narrow streets, people dig with their hands. But now there is no sound in the ruins. Whoever was lying there was hopeless.
ReutersRamez Abu Nasr dug for hours. His mother, father and brother were buried under collapsed masonry.
Ramez managed to save his youngest brother. The boy told him that he heard his parents reciting the “Shehada” of the Muslim faith nearby.
After a while, they fell silent.
“I rescued my brother at the last minute. I didn’t know how we were going to get back home…without my mother, father or brother,” Ramez said.
The family fled here from Jabaliya twelve days ago when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began a new offensive against Hamas in the north.
The Israel Defense Forces issued an evacuation order, affecting about 400,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip, requiring them to move to the south.
But thousands remain, exhausted by the constant displacement and afraid of heading to a place where they can’t get supplies.
In one house that still stands, a young man kneels before his dead sister. She looks to be in her thirties. “Oh my God, my sister, my sister,” he shouted.
Civil defense volunteers were collecting bodies inside the building. They found a seriously injured man and ran to an ambulance.
They were trying to save lives but were also afraid of being bombed themselves.
Ahmed Karut of the local civil defense department looked around and witnessed the carnage. Behind him, a colleague attempted CPR on a woman. There is no hope.
“This is the Said family’s house,” Ahmed said.
Several ambulances lined the street. Most of them died. Bodies piled up. All ages.
Blood seeped from the child’s forehead. A woman wrapped in a brightly colored blanket sat next to her. Next to the ambulance, a dead middle-aged man was lying on a hospital trolley.
ReutersMany of the injured were taken to Kamal Adwan Hospital in Jabaliya. The hospital’s director, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyyah, told me by phone that his hospital faced a dire humanitarian crisis and accused Israel of collective punishment.
“We urge the world to intervene, to impose humanity on the Israeli military, to open humanitarian corridors and allow the entry of medical tools, delegations, fuel and food so that we can provide humanitarian services to children, newborns and patients who are in need,” he explain.
The United States accused Israel of withholding or blocking up to 90% of aid to northern Gaza last month and threatened to cut arms shipments unless changes were made.
Israel said it was taking U.S. concerns seriously and was “addressing the issue.”
Israel does not allow international journalists from media organizations, including the BBC, independent access to Gaza.
The Israel Defense Forces said it was targeting only “terrorists” and released a video showing Hamas opening fire from inside a clinic in Jabaliya. The military also said they found weapons and booby traps at a medical facility.
In the video, an officer with a blurred face points to booby traps and weapons and says to the camera: “Everything here is a cynical exploitation of civilians, in clinics, in civilian compounds. We will hunt these terrors down.” molecules and find them at every corner.
In Jabaliya, a pregnant woman sits in the dust outside her house. Civil defense workers arrived and helped her onto a stretcher. Her father was there to tell her, “You’re going to be okay. You’re going to have a baby, my heart.
Then a shell exploded nearby. The small group rushed to the ambulance and escaped.
They pray for peace in Jabaliya every day. For food and medicine, for schools to be open.
They begged, but knew their voices wouldn’t stop what was happening.
Additional reporting by Haneen Abdeen and Alice Doyard
