Israel's 100 days of relentless war on Gaza

Today marks 100 days since Israel started its assault on Gaza.

In that time, the death toll among Palestinians living in Gaza has risen to nearly 24,000 as Israel unleashed more than 65,000 tonnes of bombs on the besieged enclave and its population of 2.3 million people trapped in less than 400sq kilometres.

Israel’s assault on Gaza began on October 7, in response to an attack by armed fighters from the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas and other Palestinian groups. Some 1,140 people died during the attack and about 240 were taken into Gaza as captives.

In retaliation, Israel began a vicious bombing campaign and tightened what was already a crushing siege that Gaza has been under since 2007.

“We are fighting human animals,” Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said on October 9, announcing that food, water, fuel, medicines, everything, would not be permitted into Gaza.

Since then, defying condemnations and pleas from international organisations and rights groups, Israel has continued an indiscriminate campaign that has sown terror among the people in Gaza, killed entire multi-generation families, and destroyed huge swaths of urban and rural lands.

Israel now stands accused by South Africa of carrying out genocide in Gaza at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in The Hague in the Netherlands.

Speaking on Saturday, after presentations by both sides were done at the ICJ, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said “No one will stop us, not The Hague, not the axis of evil and not anyone else.” His “axis” comment referred to Iran and its allied groups.

Alternating between claims that this level of killing and destruction is somehow justified in the name of self-defence and statements that it is doing its utmost to avoid civilian casualties, Israel has often strayed far from its statements about the different aspects of this war on Gaza.

Israel’s messaging on civilians has confused observers. While claiming on the one hand to not be targeting civilians, it has also pushed a narrative that paints every civilian in Gaza as an armed member of Hamas.

THIS is what the world needs to know about the civilians in Gaza: pic.twitter.com/b8HOsstwqC

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) October 12, 2023

In addition to that, Omer Tishler, the brigadier-general who heads the Israeli Air Force, told the Jerusalem Post as early as October 11 that the bombing campaign was taking out entire inhabited neighbourhoods in order to target one or two “Hamas commanders” its intelligence said were hiding there.

The intelligence in question seems to be an AI system known as the Gospel (Habsora) that was churning out potential targets faster than attacks on those targets could be carried out and certainly faster than any review by a human could happen – which was not the procedure followed.

By naming the Habsora-generated targets “military”, Tishler was able to conclude, chillingly: “There is always a military target, but we are not being surgical.”

On the ground, this means Israel has dropped bombs on refugee camps, hospitals, schools – and entire neighbourhoods, all of which have been destroyed.

Israel claims that its system of “warning” people it is about to bomb is adequate and absolves it from blame.

The system in question is air-dropping leaflets on neighbourhoods that tell residents their homes are about to be bombed, giving them anything from hours to a day or two to completely abandon their homes and lives and leave – on foot, as fleeing civilians have been banned from using vehicles from the early days of the war on Gaza.

Since October 7, Israel has allowed journalists from all over the world to come to Israel and report, conducting guided tours of the areas attacked by the Qassam Brigades and other Palestinian fighters.

It has also allowed, in November, two Western news networks to go on separate occasions into Gaza, where they were accompanied by the Israeli army and taken around and shown various areas that had been prepared for their visit.

However, Israel has not allowed the entry of any foreign or Palestinian journalists present outside Gaza into the Gaza Strip to do their own reporting.

In late October, the Reuters and Agence France Presse agencies wrote to the Israeli army to ask that their journalists in Gaza not be targeted.

The Israeli army responded that it protects civilians but “cannot guarantee the safety of reporters in the Gaza Strip”, claiming that Hamas deliberately operated near journalists, thus putting them in the line of fire.

Foreign media appealed the prohibition on entering Gaza, but on January 9, Israel’s Supreme Court refused their petition, claiming that the presence of foreign journalists in Gaza could endanger Israeli troops by giving away their operational locations.

As for those journalists in Gaza, they have found themselves in increasing danger, with little respect being given to the press markings they wear every day.

To date, 100 Palestinian journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, one person each day.

The last two victims, Al Jazeera’s Hamza Dahdouh and freelancer Mustafa Thuraya, were killed in a targeted air strike on their car in Khan Younis on January 7.

On December 15, the Israeli army targeted a school in Gaza from which Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa and Gaza bureau head Wael Dahdouh were reporting. There were no reported disturbances nearby that could explain the attack.

Dahdoud was hit in the arm and managed to make his way to a nearby ambulance. Abudaqa was badly injured in the legs and could not get away.

For the next five hours, the Intercept found, he lay bleeding as numerous appeals were made to the Israeli army to allow an ambulance to go save the journalist. The army refused and threatened any vehicles approaching.

After an anguished watch, Abudaqa bled to death.

In a continued blurring of the lines between acceptable targets and war crimes, Israel maintained from the early days of its war on Gaza that al-Shifa Hospital was serving as a cover for a massive Qassam Brigades command centre that was in tunnels underneath Gaza’s biggest hospital.

After marking al-Shifa a target – while proclaiming that the tens of thousands of sick, injured, and displaced people huddling there were not targets – Israeli forces surrounded the hospital in early November and the already struggling medical facility was plunged into darkness as it lost power.

Cake, peanut butter, ketchup, olives, dates: SOME of the food Israel provided the Shifa Hospital this morning.

Hospitals are #NotATarget, Hamas terrorists who base themselves there – are. pic.twitter.com/IhRloLbkHd

— COGAT (@cogatonline) November 21, 2023

The world watched in horror as hospital staff were forced to take 36 premature babies out of their now-useless incubators and do their best to keep them warm and breathing with no equipment.

Eight babies died as Israeli attacks on people moving between buildings heightened the fear of the already terrified people in the hospital.

Israel raided the hospital on November 15 and told people sheltering there to leave, on foot, and head south in Gaza. Israel denied it had issued evacuation orders for the hospital.

Six days later, the surviving babies were finally allowed to be evacuated southwards towards Rafah. They were eventually taken to Egypt for treatment they desperately needed.

One day later, the Israeli Ministry of Defence’s outreach programme, the Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT), said it had delivered large amounts of food to the hospital, including cakes, chocolate spread and pickles.

However, it did not mention how it decided on the amounts of food, how many people were left alive in the hospital, or how long these amounts were supposed to sustain them.

Al-Shifa Hospital was not alone in being attacked. Israel seemed to be systematically targeting hospitals in Gaza. According to the World Health Organization, Israel has hit about 94 medical facilities, including 26 hospitals, since October 7.

Among the hospitals devastated were the Indonesian Hospital, the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, and others.

There have been almost 600 Israeli attacks on hospitals and healthcare within Gaza since October, the United Nations reports.

In these attacks, Israel killed about 606 people and devastated an already struggling healthcare system, preventing medics from providing life-saving care to thousands of victims in the enclave.

Those hospitals that are still standing are working with a shocking lack of supplies, performing surgeries without anaesthetic and only able to provide paracetamol to amputees – like three-year-old Ahmad Shabat, who lost both his legs in an Israeli bombing – for pain control.

Doctors have also recounted having to perform Caesarean section deliveries with no pain relief at all, fearing that the mothers’ chances of surviving such physical pain would be slim.

Al Jazeera’s Mohammed Mhawish wrote of being unable to access pain relief or antibiotics after he and his family’s home was destroyed in an Israeli attack.

Mohammed described entire nights deprived of sleep as broken bones and open wounds plagued them.

“Infection is a constant worry,” he wrote, “Every time the first trace of contamination appears, the wounds have to be cleaned with scorching water, fluid so hot that it burns the healthy skin around the wound. It was difficult to get [Mohammed’s two-year-old son] Rafik to understand that we weren’t trying to burn him.”

Yet Israel’s messaging continued to claim that it was doing everything possible to help provide healthcare to the devastated people of Gaza.

Over the last few days, we coordinated and facilitated a new field hospital in southern Gaza, operated by the International Medical Corps. With a capacity of 50 beds, personnel of 200 and comprehensive care, the hospital bolsters the medical response for civilians in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/rpCPEyOqyA

— COGAT (@cogatonline) January 10, 2024

According to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), children’s living conditions continue to deteriorate rapidly in Gaza, with cases of diarrhoea and skin diseases increasing and raising the risk of more child deaths.

In a move harkening back to medieval siege tactics, Israel has gone from stopping entirely to severely limiting the amount of food, water and fuel that is able to enter the Gaza enclave.

From an approximate 500 trucks of humanitarian aid every working day – in addition to normal commerce and movement of locally grown vegetables, fruits, dairy and livestock – Gaza was cut down to nothing for two weeks. Water-purification and sewage-treatment plants ground to a halt, as they ran out of the fuel they needed to keep running.

Desperate, the people of Gaza started drinking unpotable salty water and bathing and washing their clothes in the sea, resulting in the spread of skin diseases as a result of contact with polluted seawater.

For the Gaza Strip, where 80 percent of the people were already reliant on humanitarian aid, these weeks with no food supplies were harrowing as hunger became a daily reality and parents feared their children would starve to death in front of their eyes.

The shipments of humanitarian aid that were eventually allowed in have been nowhere near enough to feed an already destitute and beleaguered population. The UN says that about one out of every four people is starving in Gaza and that two-thirds of families in some areas have spent at least one full day and night without food.

Prior to Israel’s war on Gaza, humanitarian aid was also allowed in through several crossings, which were whittled down to one, the Rafah crossing with Egypt, and burdened with a long, circuitous inspection protocol that slowed deliveries down further.

Throughout the fighting, COGAT has been charged with delivering relief to the besieged citizens of the Gaza Strip and has worked double time to highlight any efforts, making extensive use of social media, often in sharp contrast with the experience of the people of Gaza that COGAT is meant to be helping.

List of foods that entered the Gaza Strip since the start of the war.
Israel has not and will not stand in the way of providing food or any other form of humanitarian aid to the people of Gaza. pic.twitter.com/soIksy3PCu

— COGAT (@cogatonline) January 11, 2024

According to aid agencies within Gaza, the territory is now experiencing the world’s worst hunger crisis.

Relief agency staff report that families are combing through the rubble and searching for whatever scraps of food they can find.

According to the internationally recognised five-phase scale used to classify food crises, more than half a million people in Gaza – a quarter of the entire population – are now understood to be living through the most severe phase 5 “catastrophic level”.

In other words, they are currently at critical risk of mass starvation and death.

COGAT claims to the contrary, relief and aid entering the Gaza Strip have barely met the urgent needs of a population now left destitute and starving.

According to the UN, in the final week of December, food assistance had only reached 8 percent of the targeted people in need.

Before the war, an average of 70 food trucks entered Gaza every day. The average last week was 109.

WATCH: COGAT's spokesperson Shani Sasson with 3 facts about food in Gaza👇 pic.twitter.com/OV8bHJXljQ

— COGAT (@cogatonline) January 9, 2024

From the beginning of the Israeli assault, the suffering in Gaza has been on many levels.

Besides people feeling they are in physical danger, going hungry, not being able to access medical attention, and not being able to contact family who are in other locations, they have been plagued by the constant uncertainty of where they should go to seek some modicum of safety.

The IDF published information regarding the evacuation of Gazan civilians for their safety in the next stage of the war.

The map published divides the territory of Gaza into zones according to recognizable areas. This enables the residents of Gaza to orient themselves and to…

— Israel Defense Forces (@IDF) December 1, 2023

Israel instructed people in the north to “head south” constantly in the early days of its assault. Among those people who heeded the call was Dina, a young mother who put her daughters on a truck that was leaving Gaza City on October 13 and heading south in a convoy.

Despite Israeli announcements that the evacuation route was safe, the convoy was bombed and Dina was killed, leaving her two daughters and anguished husband behind.

The destruction moved further and further south in the Gaza Strip, squeezing a desperate population tighter and tighter into an ever-decreasing area near its southern border with Egypt.

In early December, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the UN Security Council that people in Gaza “are being told to move like human pinballs – ricocheting between ever-smaller slivers of the south, without any of the basics for survival”.

The destruction of hundreds of thousands of housing units has also meant that displaced people moving from their own destroyed homes have found nowhere to shelter, and hundreds of thousands have camped as best they can on hospital grounds, on the roads, and in empty fields, which adds a chilling reality to news that Israel has struck rural land here or there.

On January 10, four children were killed by Israeli bombs dropped on agricultural land near Rafah where displaced people were sheltering. The region near the border crossing is a maze of tents as displaced Palestinians seek shelter from Israeli attacks.

Hundreds of homes have been hit throughout the war on Gaza, in several locations, many of which were within areas the Israeli army had claimed were “safe”.

When a strike hits, families, neighbours, and volunteer rescuers rush to the scene and begin frantically digging through the rubble, often with their bare hands, to save whoever may still be alive.

Throughout, Israel has claimed that it is operating with the safety of the civilians of Gaza in mind and that it is exerting every effort to avoid any unnecessary deaths.

According to the Geneva-based Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, Israel has been deliberately targeting shelters within Gaza in a bid to force residents to seek ways out of the Gaza Strip, should one become available.

In a statement, the organisation stressed that Israel’s targeted attacks on Gaza’s shelter centres stood in stark violation of international law, particularly international humanitarian law.

As the humanitarian suffering of the people of Gaza continues, it remains to be seen whether international condemnation and pressure on Israel will serve to stop its relentless attacks.