As the world's eyes turned to Iran this week, Israeli forces killed hundreds of people in Gaza
IN THE LAST week news headlines the world over have been focused on the alarming developments in the Middle East since Israel attacked nuclear and military sites in Iran last Friday, and Iran responded with aerial strikes against Israel.
Much of the focus has been on whether the US, under the Trump administration, will carry out strikes on Iran alongside Israel. Trump has prevaricated on the issue, but finally said yesterday that he believes that there a chance for real negotiations to take place, which he is allowing a two weeks window for.
He has urged Iran to make an unconditional surrender.
Israel's military offensive in Gaza and the deadly manner in which the dispersal of aid into the strip is being managed has continued in the last week at the same time, with several key incidents taking place.
The last 24 hours
Gaza's civil defence agency has said that 31 Palestinian aid seekers were among at least 60 people killed today by Israeli forces (Gaza is two hours ahead of GMT time).
A spokesperson said that five people were killed while waiting for aid in the southern Gaza strip and 26 others were killed in a central area known as the Netzarim corridor, an Israeli-controlled strip of land that bisets Palestinian territory.
Thousands are gathering there daily in an attempt to get food ration, as famine is looming across Gaza after more than 20 months of war.
The Israeli army has claimed it fired 'warning shots' at 'suspects' that approached them.
They further said that when individuals continued to approach an aircraft 'eliminated the suspects in order to remove the threat'.
The Israel and US backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has taken over the distribution of aid into the strip since May, and there have been multiple mass deaths of aid seekers since.
Also today, the civil defence agency said that 14 people were killed in two separate strikes in and around the central city of Deir el-Balah, and 13 others in three Israeli air strikes in the Gaza City Area.
In Southern Gaza, two others were killed by 'Israeli gunfire'.
AFP news agency has said it is now difficult to independently verify death tolls due to Israeli restrictions on media in the Strip, and difficulties in accessing some areas.
Today, the former Israeli ambassador to the US Michael Oren appeared on Today with Claire Byrne, and he disputed reports that people are dying of widespread starvation in Gaza.
He claimed that UN is getting its data 'from Hamas', and that Israeli analysts have 'different data'.
Oren also claimed that Hamas is killing people near aid sites as
In the last week
On Thursday, the civil defence agency said that Israeli forces had killed at least 72 people, including another 21 aid seekers near distribution sites.
Spokesperson Mahmud Bassal said that six were killed while waiting for aid in Southern Gaza, and 15 were killed in the Netzarim corridor.
A man who witnessed the shootings at aid sites told AFP that people had gathered overnight on Wednesday, hoping that aid would be distributed on Thursday morning.
'Around 1:00 am (2200 GMT Wednesday), they started shooting at us,' he said by phone, reporting gunfire, tank shelling and bombs dropped by drones.
Another man who spoke to the news agency said the size of the crowd made it impossible for people to escape, and that casualties were left lying on the ground within walking distance of the aid distribution point.
'We couldn't help them or even escape ourselves,' he said.
In Northern Gaza – where most territories are under an evacuation order from the IDF – Bassal said that 51 people were killed in nine separate strikes.
On the Wednesday, 33 people were reported as being killed by Israeli fire, including 11 aid seekers. Bassal said that 'occupation forces opened fire and launched several shells… at thousands of citizens'.
Once again, on Wednesday, the IDF said that a group of 'suspicious individuals' had approached its forces in a manner that 'posed a potential threat'.
It said that its troops fired 'warning shots', but that it was 'unaware of injuries'.
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Later on Wednesday, the IDF said one of its soldiers was killed during an operation in Southern Gaza.
On the same day the chair of the United Nations' Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Israel and the Palestinian territories said that the new aid 'foundation' is 'outrageous'.
'It involves the United States itself, the government, and it turns out, as we watch daily, that people who go to these centres are being killed as they seek food'.
The United Nations and other major aid organisations are refusing to work with the group over concerns that it is furthering Israeli military objectives.
West Bank raids
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, the Israeli military raided refugee camps in the West Bank overnight.
An official who runs the Balata Camp said that the military evicted home owners in the camps and told them not to return for 72 hours, and used their homes as interrogation outposts.
Imad Zaki said that house-to-house searches were conducted, and that the contents of refugees' homes were destroyed, and residents were 'assaulted'.
Zaki said that life in the camp was 'largely paralysed' by the raid.
On the Tuesday, the civil defence agency said that more than 50 Palestinians were killed near the aid centre in the territories south, and some 200 people were wounded.
A man who witnessed the shootings by military drones said that people were murdered 'in cold blood' who were 'ordinary, unarmed people'.
The IDF said that it was looking into reports of injuries, and that a 'gathering' had been identified near an aid distribution truck that 'got stuck'.
On Monday the civil defence agency reported that Israeli troops killed 20 people who were waiting to collect food.
Bassal said that the Israeli forces opened fire near the Al-Alam roundabout in the southern city of Rafah, where people were waiting to reach the aid distribution site.
On the same day, Ahmed al-Farra, the head of the paediatric department at Nasser Hospital in the nearby city of Khan Yunis said that people 'are hungry, they didn't get any food since nearly four months ago'.
Farra said that the GHF sites are the only way for people to seek out food, and when they get there they are 'killed by snipers'.
Alamy Stock Photo
Alamy Stock Photo
The International Committee of the Red Cross said it had 200 people at its field hospital in the Al-Mawasi area near Rafah on the Monday.
On the Sunday it treated 170 patients. In a statement the Red Cross said many of those people 'were wounded by gunshots, and reported that they were trying to access a food distribution site'.
On the same day at the G7 summit in Canada, Ursala von der Leyen, the European Commission President, told reporters that Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu promised over the phone to do more to bring aid in Gaza.
On the Sunday, it was reported that 16 people were killed in Israeli military operations in various parts of the Gaza strip, including three citizens near aid distribution centres.
Netanyahu speaking on Fox News.
On the Sunday Netanyahu appeared on Fox News, the US channel, and said that he had ordered negotiators to 'advance' talks on the release of hostages being held in Gaza.
He said that the US Middle East envoy made an offer to begin a 60-day ceasefire, with half of the remaining hostages being released straight away.
Of the 251 hostages that were seized in Hamas's October 7 attacks, 52 are still held in Gaza, including 34 who Israel believes to be dead.
On the Saturday, the day after Israel's attacks on Iran, Gaza rescuers said that 41 people were killed in Israeli military operations, more than half of whom were waiting on aid.
On the same day, internet access was restored after a three day blackout, which the Palestinian Telecommunications Regulatory Authority blamed on Israel (a claim Israel didn't comment on).
The Palestine Red Crescent Society said the week before that the blackout had hindered its rescue operations by making it difficult to contact first responders in the field.
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I didn't sleep a minute. I hate goodbyes, but I was forced to make one. I hugged my mother and father tightly. My younger siblings clung to me, crying. My heart ached. I felt like I was abandoning them at the worst possible moment—when they were starving, when bombs fell daily, when they needed me most. I promised we would meet again, under better skies. I carry that promise every day. Displaced in Rafah in tents The journey out of Gaza was terrifying. We could bring only a small handbag, one change of clothes, no money, no souvenirs — nothing from our lives. We left with our souls, and that was all. The ride to the Kerem Shalom crossing was long and exhausting. Passing through Rafah felt like a nightmare. That area had become a military zone — nothing remained but flattened houses, debris, scattered clothing, and the remnants of lives. The silence was broken only by the droning of drones and Israeli tanks. That was the same Rafah we had been displaced to early in the genocide: a city of tents, where families froze in winter rains, where my siblings slept hungry, wet, and cold. I remembered when we had no mattresses, when rain filled our tents, when there was no bread or flour, and my father had to walk miles to fetch water. Rafah was not refuge. It was a memory of unbearable hardship, deprivation, the theft of childhood. Crossing into Jordan, I saw — perhaps for the first time — our occupied Palestinian lands: the Dead Sea, Jericho, hills, coastlines — all beautiful, all out of reach. We looked at them through bus windows, snapping photos as painful souvenirs. This was our land. We are its people. Yet we could not walk its paths, sit under its trees, or rest on its shorelines. We saw Israeli families enjoying the coast with their children. I thought of Gaza's children — my siblings. Two years have passed since they last played by the sea. That contrast felt unbearable. As exile continued, memories overwhelmed me. I realised I would never again walk Gaza's streets, once my entire life. I would no longer hear the call to prayer, buy falafel from familiar stalls, or eat kunafa from Abu Saudi. No more morning mint tea, no more baking manakish with my mother. I would no longer smell jasmine flowers or walk beneath olive trees. Even during genocide, these simple joys had already been stolen. My life had been turned upside down. Eman Alhaj Ali is a Palestinian freelance journalist, writer, translator, and storyteller from Gaza and currently based in Ireland to complete her postgraduate studies . I am not originally from Gaza. My parents and ancestors came from Jaffa, displaced during the Nakba of 1948. And now, history repeats itself. My first Nakba came when we fled to tents in Rafah; my second now in exile. My body is in Ireland, but my soul and thoughts remain in Gaza. I am one of many survivors who left everything behind under the weight of genocide. My mind cannot rest. I cannot accept living in peace when I'm not. I am haunted. In daylight, loud sounds trigger terror. I instinctively cover my ears at the thought of warplanes. Passing supermarkets filled with food, I think of my family and others who are starving. Seeing parents walk their children to school, I think of mine who cannot. I carry this burden every day — studying, working, pretending to be present, but always worried. The pain of disconnection during blackouts is unbearable. The silence of no signal, no message, no voice from home is devastating. I had never imagined my twenties would be marked by suffering, exile, and survival. But I promised myself and my family that this is not the end of our story. We will return. Our life will be better than before. Gaza follows me in every step I take — the sound of the sea, the scent of jasmine, the memory of every tree, every road, every streetlight. We are scattered across the world now, but something still connects us: our belonging to this land. We will continue writing, speaking, and demanding our right to live freely in our homeland. We are its people, and no exile or blackout can erase that truth. Eman Alhaj Ali is a Palestinian freelance journalist, writer, translator, and storyteller from Gaza and is currently based in Ireland to complete her postgraduate studies.
