New Gaza Bloodshed

26 December 2023, Herald-Sun, by Adella Beaini

An Israeli strike on a refugee camp in central Gaza has killed at least 70 people in one of the deadliest attacks by Israel since it declared war nearly three months ago.

The fatalities at the Maghazi camp, east of Deir al-Balah, on Monday, include 12 women and seven children, with the death toll likely to climb.

“What is happening at the Maghazi camp is a massacre that is being committed on a crowded residential square,” Pal­estinian Health Ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said.

Videos posted on social media of the aftermath of the strike showed rows of bodies wrapped in white cloth as survivors mourned those killed.

“We were all targeted,” said Ahmad Turokmani, who lost several family members, including his daughter and grandson. “There is no safe place in Gaza anyway.”

The Hamas militant group called the air attack on the camp “a horrific massacre” and “a new war crime”.

Mr al-Qudra also said an Israeli air strike “targeting a house” near the village of Al-Zawaida had killed 12 people, mostly women and children.

The war has devastated Gaza, with more 20,400 Palestinians killed and nearly 85 per cent of the territory’s 2.3 million people displaced.

It comes as Israeli forces recovered the bodies of five hostages – three soldiers and two civilians – in a tunnel in the Gaza Strip, Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said in a statement.

They were among 240 people dragged back to the Gaza Strip by Hamas gunmen during the cross-border rampage of October 7 that sparked the war.

Meanwhile, Bethlehem has cancelled its annual Christmas celebrations out of respect for the ongoing siege of the Gaza Strip. Bethlehem – or Beit Lechem, located in what is now the Israeli-occupied West Bank – is typically flooded with pilgrims and other celebrants in late December.

This year, however, the festivities were pared back to a nativity scene at the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church of an infant Jesus wrapped in a keffiyeh and surrounded by rubble.

The Church of the Nativity – which dates back to the 6th century – was surrounded by razor wire and nativity scene figures were covered in tarps.

The church is practically empty as the usual 6000 daily visitors that descend on Bethlehem trickled down to fewer than 1000 in one month.

The mournful mood was the joint decision of multiple Palestinian Christian leaders, who came together last month to cancel public celebrations in light of the war in Gaza.

“If Jesus were born today, he would be born in Gaza amid the rubble,” Reverend Munther Isaac, of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church, said.

“Who can sing ‘Joy to the World’ today? This genocide must stop now.”