PALESTINE – A week has passed since Israel declared war on Hamas. The Palestinian Ministry of Health has stated that the death toll in their country has reached 2,670 as of Sunday (15/10/2023). Many of these lives were lost due to Israeli airstrikes in Gaza.
Quoting the Anadolu news agency, in an official statement, the Palestinian Ministry of Health said that among the dead are 750 children. Meanwhile, the number of injured victims has risen to 9,600, and more than 470,000 people have been displaced due to the Israeli attacks. All of this has exacerbated the suffering of Palestine as a whole.
The Palestinian Health Minister, Mai Alkaila, stated that 50 families in her country have disappeared or been entirely removed from civil records because they were victims of the ongoing Israeli violence. She also mentioned that the current situation in Gaza is “serious” and described it as a “disaster on all levels.”
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Furthermore, Alkaila mentioned that her people are now threatened by infectious diseases, a result of high population density and the lack of electricity and water supplies. Therefore, she emphasized the importance of international action to strongly urge both conflicting parties to end the conflict.
The Origin of the Israeli Attack
It is known that last weekend, as tensions in the Middle East dramatically increased, Israeli forces launched a continuous military assault on the Gaza Strip in response to military attacks by the Hamas fighter group within Israeli territory.
The Hamas attack was not without reason. It was a retaliation for a series of violence carried out by Israeli settlers—which were ignored by their government—in Jerusalem and the West Bank. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), Israeli settlers have carried out a series of violent attacks against Palestinians—at least 700 times during the year 2023—in the West Bank. This number is the highest ever recorded.
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Hamas initiated Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against Israel, a sudden multi-branch attack including a barrage of rocket launches and infiltrations into Israel by land, sea, and air. This operation was also a retaliation for the raid and occupation of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in East Jerusalem and the escalating violence of Israeli settlers against Palestinian citizens.
Angered, the Israeli military then launched Operation Iron Sword against Hamas fighters in the Gaza Strip. The Israeli response did not stop there; it extended to cutting off water and electricity supplies to Gaza. This has further worsened the living conditions in an area that has been experiencing a crippling siege since 2007. More than 1 million residents of North Gaza have been ordered to evacuate to the southern region.
Help the Palestinian People
Friends, our brothers and sisters in Gaza are currently fighting to defend their land, which has been gradually seized by Israel. However, violence should not be normalized. Thousands of innocent lives have been lost in vain. Therefore, we need to push for peace in the Israel and Palestine region. Even if we cannot directly go to the site of this humanitarian disaster, we can still contribute to helping our brothers and sisters there, through the link below.
