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The devastated and fearful Palestinians after Israel resumes


Reuters mourners cry for the bodies covered with Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes, at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital, in Deir Al-Balah on March 18, 2025Reuters

The mourners on Tuesday cry for the bodies of those killed in the air attacks on Monday night at the Al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir Al-Balah

He had started as a normal night in Gaza, with the people who already had his food before dawn in the Sacred Month of Ramadan. After 50 nights of high fire, life in the territory had settled in a relative calm of calm.

But then the girlfriend and explosions began. Then came the sound of people shouting.

Essam Abu Odeh and his family had been sleeping when war planes arrived.

“Around 02:00 (midnight GMT), suddenly they woke us up for the sounds of the heavy bombing,” Gaza Radio de la BBC told Radio.

“My daughter woke me up, warning me about the bombs. We quickly take refuge against the walls, fearing that the debris would fall on us.”

Israel’s airplanes got from the north to cross the strip, hitting the city of Gaza in the center and then heads further south in Rafah and Khan Younis.

Blitz on Monday night killed more than 400 people, mostly women and children, local health authorities led by Hamas said. They did not identify the number of killed fighters: Israel says he went to the Hamas commanders.

More than 600 more are injured. Once again, the hospitals in the territory were flooded, doctors in turn fighting against a sudden influx of injured, many of them children.

Israeli Strikes in Gaza – Follow the live updates

The BBC met with the family of an injured man, Ahmad Mo’in al-Jumla, at the Al-Shifa hospital in the city of Gaza. He had been in the beach refugee camp in Al-Ahrar when he was beaten.

“We were surprised that this area was attacked,” says his sister, noting that at first they could not find it.

“From night to the morning, we could not understand if it was injured or not, because the scene was horrible, and nobody had any news: the whole building had collapsed in everyone in that area.”

At 05:00, they took him from under the rubble. He was alive, but was urgently taken to the hospital with fractures and a brain injury.

His family also suffered his own terrible experience when his neighborhood was beaten. “Suddenly, we find the house collapse in us, the rubble falling from all directions,” said his sister.

“We tried to leave, we wanted to escape, but there was nothing. It was night and suddenly there were bombings in the house.”

The Palestinians of Reuters inspect the debris and the destruction of what used to be a home after the air attacks on Monday night by the Israel Army, seen through a large hole in a buildingReuters

An Israeli strike destroyed this residential building in Deir Al-Balah

“The war resumed abruptly, without prior notice,” says another resident of Gaza M.

He was getting up for Suhoor food, or before dawn, when his street was hit by shooting and bombing.

“A feeling of terror swept the area,” he says. “Everyone were full of fear, insecure where to go or if we could be displaced again.”

“Fear once again has taken over people, especially as we are in the month of Ramadan,” he said.

Israel hit Gaza throughout the morning, the attacks relax when the sun came out.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the attacks, said his office, after Hamas could not free more hostages or accept US proposals to extend a high fire that had been maintained since the end of January.

Since the first phase of Alto El Fuego had come to an end earlier this month, there had been fears that the fight would resume again, especially when the conversations stagnated two days ago.

On Monday night, the White House was informed by Israel before resuming their attacks.

But those who live in Gaza were blind. The return of the combat planes broke what had been two months of fragile peace.

“I was surprised that the war has started again, but at the same time, this is what we expect from the Israeli,” said Hael, resident of Jabalia Al-Falad, to BBC Arabic.

“We were not surprised; we hope this at any time,” he says about the collapse of the truce. “But shock is huge: 200 martyrs (murdered people) at times. As a citizen, I’m exhausted. We have had enough, a year and a half for this! It’s enough,” he said.

Before the high fire at the end of January, the war had continued for 15 months with Israeli air attacks and bombing killing more than 46,000 Palestinians in Gaza.

Umm Mohammed Abou Aisha, who lived in Deir Al-Balah in the East, had managed to survive with his mother during that period.

But his mother was killed Tuesday morning. His last memory is from her entering the kitchen, saying that she wanted to make her food in the morning.

“My mother woke up as usual to prepare her Suhoor food, preparing to fast but not ready to fight,” Reuters told the news agency.

Reuters UMM Mohammed Abou Aisha, with black garment and head cover, with white walls and a vehicle behindReuters

Umm Mohammed Abou Aisha’s mother was killed in a strike in the east

The strike hit his neighbor’s house, throwing the neighborhood, he said.

She has questioned the state of supposed peace. “Life is becoming more difficult, there is no truce or fire.”

“There are snipers (parked) daily in front of citizens, continuous attacks. There is nothing of what was agreed (in Alto El Fuego).

Another resident, Mohammed Bdeir, said her daughter was killed: her street was bombarded while the whole family was sleeping.

“(Suddenly) we woke up on the strike, they hit our neighbors … we found this girl under the rubble, we take out her mother and her father under the rubble.”

Then he found his daughter’s body there too, he told the AFP news agency.

Reuters two elders react two Palestinian men, one raises his hand, the other holds his head in his hands, at the site of an Israeli strike in a building in javelia in northern GazaReuters

The Palestinians react at the site of an Israeli strike in a building in Jabalia in Northern Gaza

The southeast of the city of Gaza, Ramez Alammarin, 25, described to take children to a hospital.

“They unleashed the fire of hell again in Gaza,” he told AFP, and added that “the bodies and limbs are on the ground, and the injured cannot find any doctor to treat them.”

The hospital authorities in Gaza have told the BBC that many patients who are transported suffer serious head and bleeding injuries, burns, fractures.

“The attacks were so sudden that the number of medical personnel was inappropriate for the scale of these great strikes,” said Dr. Mohammed Zaqout, general director of the Gaza Strip hospitals.

He points out that there are only seven hospitals capable of operating throughout the territory at this time, after 15 months of war. And despite the truce, few medical supplies in Gaza had allowed themselves.

Another doctor described the situation as a catastrophic. There is a serious shortage of medical and surgical equipment, intensive care beds, medications.

“Even medical staff has completely exhausted after more than a year and a half of continuous emergency work,” said Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya.

“We have seen many people wounded to lose their lives right in front of us simply because there are no medical supplies or any possible way to offer them attention.”

He called Israel’s actions at dawn a “massacre against sleeping civilians in Gaza’s strip.”

Most admissions so far have been at Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis in the south. People hurried stretchers with the wounds to the hospital.

The bodies covered with white sheets were also taken to the hospital morgue. The families gathered for funerals in the street.

Essam, the father awakened by his little daughter this morning, says he is begging the mediating countries to end their suffering.

“We do not want war to resume. We are looking for peace so we can live and sleep without fear,” he told the BBC.



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