A Palestinian girl trapped in the Gaza Strip has described the horror of life amid constant bombing, insisting: “Nowhere is safe.”
13-year-old Zaina fears for her life in the face of Israeli airstrikes and fears she may lose loved ones.
After Hamas launched its attack last Saturday, Israel launched a campaign of airstrikes across the Gaza Strip in revenge.
Zaina and her family had to flee Gaza City and move south to an area Israel assured them was safe.
In an emotional message she shared with the Mirror, she said they had to leave suddenly on the first day of Israeli attacks, not knowing where they were going or whether they would be safe.
Zaina and her family had to leave Gaza City and head south to an area Israel assured them was safe
Palestinians search the rubble of a building after an Israeli attack in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023
A Palestinian reacts as he is helped over the rubble after an Israeli airstrike on buildings in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, October 17, 2023
Zaina appealed to the outside world not to neglect Palestinians in Gaza, adding that she hopes that “one day the world will realize what we are going through.”
Their message read: “Today Israeli warplanes struck near the Gaza Rafah border crossing, not far from where Zaina and her family fled.”
“This comes as Israel continues to prepare for its ground invasion of the Gaza Strip, which could result in the conflict worsening and even more people dying.” The World Health Organization also warned that Gaza has run out of fuel, electricity in the last 24 hours and water is supplied.
Zaina said she has not had contact with her extended family or neighbors since the first day of the attack on Gaza.
She said that when they actually had a chance to talk and call each other, it was only for minutes each, without knowing anything about the situation they were in.
She added: “You start thinking about them, your neighbors, your family, what if you lost them. “Your friends, you just can’t call them. Sometimes when you call them they don’t answer and that’s really hard and you start thinking about things: What would you do if something happened to them? And everything is just in your head, which is really, really difficult.”
The Palestinian death toll from the Israeli bombing of the Gaza Strip rose to around 3,000 today.
At least six people have been killed in an Israeli airstrike on a school run by the United Nations Palestinian Refugee Agency.
The violence raged as Washington announced that US President Joe Biden would visit Israel tomorrow to show support for his war against Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip.
However, his meeting with Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas was canceled in protest over an explosion at a hospital in Gaza that killed at least 500 people and left others trapped under the rubble.
Israel denied being responsible for the explosion, claiming that Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City was hit by a misfired rocket by Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists.
However, an Islamic Jihad spokesman said this was “completely false” and accused the IDF of “trying to cover up the terrible crime and massacre they committed against civilians.”
Videos from the hospital showed fire engulfing the building and the hospital grounds littered with bodies, including many young children. Hundreds of people reportedly sought shelter in the hospital at the time of the explosion, which Hamas described as a “horrific massacre” and “genocidal crime.”
At least 500 people have been killed in an explosion said to have been caused by an Israeli airstrike, according to the Hamas-run health ministry in the Gaza Strip
Unconfirmed photos circulating on social media showed fire engulfing the hospital halls, shattered glass and body parts scattered across the area
Following the Israeli airstrike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday, scores of injured people are being taken to Al-Shifa Hospital
An injured toddler is carried by what appears to be a medic after an airstrike on the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday
About 6,000 Palestinians were staying at the hospital, which is reportedly funded by the Anglican Church.
An analysis of the IDF’s operational systems found that the terrorist organization Islamic Jihad “is responsible for the failed hospital shooting.”
A military statement said that “a barrage of rockets was fired by terrorists in Gaza, passing in the immediate vicinity of Ahli Hospital in Gaza at the time of impact.”
An IDF spokesman added: “Information we have from multiple sources indicates that Islamic Jihad is responsible for the failed rocket launch that hit the hospital in Gaza.”
Islamic Jihad is another terrorist group based in the Gaza Strip that claims to be fighting alongside Hamas against Israel. The group denied responsibility for the attack.
The Israeli army said earlier Tuesday that a hospital was a “highly sensitive building” and “not an IDF target” and urged “everyone to exercise caution when reporting unconfirmed claims of a terrorist organization.”
The head of the World Health Organization, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, wrote on
“We demand the immediate protection of civilians and health care as well as the lifting of the evacuation orders.”
But Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “The whole world should know: it was barbaric terrorists in Gaza who attacked the hospital in Gaza, and not the IDF.” “Those who brutally murdered our children are also murdering their own Children.”
Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh also blamed the US for the attack. In a televised address late Tuesday, he said Washington had given Israel “cover for its aggression.”
“The hospital massacre confirms the brutality of the enemy and the extent of his sense of defeat,” he said, adding that the attack would mark “a new turning point.”
In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters throwing stones and chanting against Abbas as popular anger boiled over after the explosion
Clashes broke out between people and Palestinian security forces during a solidarity rally with Gaza Strip’s Palestinians in the West Bank city of Ramallah on Tuesday
Protesters flooded the streets of Ramallah on Tuesday evening in support of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip
Haniyeh called on the entire Palestinian people to “come out and oppose the occupation and the settlers.” He also called on all Arabs and Muslims to protest against Israel.
Mark Regev, senior adviser to Netanyahu, told the BBC that Israel “will not intentionally target a hospital.”
He said: “My information that I have just received from the highest authorities … suggests that these were not Israeli orders, but rather that it was a Hamas rocket that missed.”
Former Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal also called for protests in front of Israeli embassies around the world after the hospital explosion.
In the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, Palestinian security forces fired tear gas and stun grenades to disperse protesters throwing stones and chanting against Abbas as popular anger boiled over after the explosion.
Witnesses said there were clashes with Palestinian security forces late Tuesday in several other cities in the West Bank, which is ruled by Abbas’s Palestinian Authority.