2024-07-13 04:18:00
The center of Gaza City, once known for its traffic jams, shopping malls and cafes, was this week transformed into an “apocalyptic” landscape, with bodies littering the streets and flattened buildings, following fierce clashes between Hamas and Israel .
“The Israeli army withdrew from the neighborhood of Al-Rimal, leaving behind massive destruction and burnt buildings. We are patient but the situation is so difficult that we cannot stand it,” despair Tariq Ghanem, 57 years old, teacher.
“There are bodies on the road for several days or even a week with no one to collect them,” it continues.
The Israeli army has not confirmed that it has withdrawn from Gaza City, where it has stepped up its attacks this week and asked 300,000 to 350,000 to flee, according to the United Nations.
On Friday morning, when residents heard that soldiers had left the scene, some of them went to the site to see the damage and the Civil Defense dismissed its staff.
She said that she found around sixty bodies in two neighborhoods in the southwest (Tal al-Hawa, al-Sinaa) as well as another 60 remains found the day before in the eastern neighborhood, Choujaiya, the place of fighting for two weeks.
According to Mahmoud Basal, spokesman for Civil Defense, many more bodies are still littering the “roads and rubble” of Tal al-Hawa and al-Sinaa, where the search continues.
Destruction unimaginable
Along the corner on the border with the Mediterranean, in the center of this city where offices were located, where residents went out and shopped, all the buildings were flattened, others were charred.
The tour around ten floors of the “Bank of Palestine” only safe at the top. The first few levels seem blown.
Everywhere, the ground is dust, trash, pieces of scrap metal and concrete, noted AFP correspondent.
“In Gaza City, you can look in any direction and the level of destruction will be beyond your imagination,” reports to AFP Louise Wateridge, spokeswoman for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees.
After a field visit, she describes the situation as“apocalyptic”as the war in Gaza entered its tenth month.
Commitment
The hostilities were triggered on October 7 by the attack of the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas against Israel, which resulted in the death of 1,195 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP count based on official data.
Israel is determined to destroy Hamas, which seized power in Gaza in 2007.
Its military campaign of retaliation has destroyed the Gaza Strip and left more than 38,340 dead, mostly civilians, according to data from the Ministry of Health of the Hamas government for Gaza. The ministry does not specify the number of fighters killed out of this total.
Already during previous wars, especially in 2021, the central area of Al Rimal was heavily damaged, the army said it was targeting the underground galleries there.
This time, the army claims that it worked in particular in the UNRWA headquarters, accusing the UN agency of allowing Hamas to do its thing, which took up residence there.
She reveals that she found many weapons, the entrance to an underground tunnel and an underground weapons-making workshop nearby, and Unrwa explains that he left the area in October.
On Friday, one wall of the building was black with soot.
On another partition, a message: “Gaza, I promise we will rebuild”.
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