JORDAN’S King Abdullah II said yesterday the international community should push for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to stop the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe caused by Israel’s ‘ugly war against civilians.’
In remarks made during a meeting with European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen, the monarch said the international community should force Israel to comply with international law to protect civilians and ensure Israel heeds calls to allow uninterrupted flow of aid into the enclave.
‘Israel’s continuation of its hideous war on Gaza and its illegal violations in the West Bank and Jerusalem will lead to an explosion in the situation in the entire region,’ said the Jordanian monarch.
He reiterated the need to work seriously towards a political horizon for the Palestinian issue to achieve a just and comprehensive peace based on the two-state solution.
The President of the European Commission affirmed her rejection of any attempts to displace the Palestinian people, and stressed the importance of preserving the historical and legal status in Jerusalem.
- Scores of Palestinian civilians were brutally murdered and many others injured today as the Israeli genocide campaign in Gaza entered its 44th day in a row, with no end in sight to the humanitarian catastrophe that has befallen the besieged enclave.
WAFA correspondent reported that at least six civilians were killed, and others injured in an Israeli airstrike targeting homes in the Sheikh Radwan neighborhood in Gaza City.
Israeli bombardment also targeted homes in the Safatawi neighborhood in northern Gaza and in Khan Yunis, south of the Strip, with no confirmed reports of casualties. The Israeli artillery also targeted the eastern area of Khuza’a town in southern Gaza.
Israeli warplanes also carried out a series of airstrikes in the Tel al-Zaatar area and around the Indonesian Hospital in northern Gaza. Simultaneously, Israeli artillery fired shells around the Zarka area and Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza.
Further, Israeli fighter jets targeted the vicinity of the Beit Lahiya cemetery, launching a series of airstrikes in the area. Additionally, new airstrikes hit the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip.
Meantime, medical sources in Gaza announced the evacuation of all the 32 premature babies and the last few medical personnel from the Al Shifa Medical Complex by a WHO delegation, a day after most of the medical staff and patients were forcibly evacuated by the Israeli army.
• ‘They bombed a cemetery in Deir al-Balah. Oh God, even the dead aren’t spared now.’
A Palestinian man posted on X, formerly Twitter, late on Saturday, after the Israeli regime warplanes rained bombs on the city cemetery of Deir al-Balah, 20 kilometers south-west of Gaza.
‘Israel doesn’t even want you to have the luxury of having your family visit your grave,’ wrote another social media user, denouncing the bombing of the historic cemetery.
The bombing of the graveyard, which has in recent weeks taken hundreds of victims of the Israeli bombing campaign, including women and children, came on Friday, according to local eyewitnesses.
The Israeli warplanes have since October 7 indiscriminately targeted the densely-populated territory, not even sparing hospitals, schools, ambulances, water pipes, solar panels and residential houses.
‘What’s left? Bombing the cemeteries so they can’t even bury their dead,’ asked a netizen.
Deir al-Balah has in recent days reported a shortage of space as bodies keep piling up amid the unrelenting Israeli attacks across the territory, making the struggle for survival real for locals.
Saadi Al Hasan Al Sulaiman, a gravedigger at Deir al-Balah, was quoted as saying last week that he buried 137 bodies in a random mass grave on a single day as the cemetery reached its maximum capacity.
It’s not just the “far right”, revisionists, centrists, the labour Zionist tradition, or “socialist” Zionists. Zionism at its root is a racist and genocidal ideology. It must be eradicated.
‘In a small space of six meters, I had to bury 45 bodies,’ said the 63-year-old man. ‘I have never buried so many bodies in my whole life.’
It is not the first time that the occupying regime has attacked cemeteries in the besieged territory.
In the Israeli aggression on Gaza in May, bombs were dropped on Beit Lahiya cemetery, where hundreds of Palestinians killed by the regime have been buried over the years.
Most of the tombstones were completely or partially destroyed as the footage later revealed.
In August last year, five Palestinian children were killed in an airstrike on the Fallujah cemetery in the town of Jabalia, in the northern Gaza Strip, the Israeli media reported at the time.
The slain children were identified as Jamil Al-Din Nijm, 3, Jamil Ihab Nijm, 13, Mohammad Salah Nijm, 16, Hamed Haidar Nijm, 16, and Nathmi Abu Karsh, 15.
In June 2021, the Palestinian Religious Endowments Ministry identified six cemeteries of Al-Tunisi, Ali bin Marwan, Sheikh Shaban, Al-Sifa, Jabalia Al-Balad, and Al-Far that were damaged by Israeli attacks.
‘I don’t know why the dead were targeted in their graves and what their fault is,’ Khaled Nasrallah, a guard at the Al-Tunisi cemetery, was quoted as saying at the time.
Dr. Ghassan Abu Sitta, a British-Palestinian plastic surgeon, has been performing non-stop surgeries at Gaza hospitals since October 7 and also chronicling the horror unfolding inside the hospitals.
In May 2018, several Palestinians were injured after they resisted attempts by the Israeli regime forces to desecrate an ancient Muslim cemetery just outside the occupied Jerusalem’s Old City wall.
Last week, the UK-based Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) said it was ‘concerned by the recent damage at the Gaza War Cemetery, where 3,217 Commonwealth casualties from the First and Second World War are commemorated.’
Amid the Israeli regime’s bombardment, the entire territory has turned into a graveyard.
U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Monday said Gaza is becoming a ‘graveyard’ for hundreds of Palestinian children each day amid the Tel Aviv regime’s refusal to announce a ceasefire.
However, the desperation to target both the living and the dead – from hospitals to cemeteries – shows how the illegitimate regime seeks to depopulate the territory and eliminate the resistance.
But, as one Palestinian activist asserted, Gaza ‘will be a graveyard of the Israeli regime.’
- People across the world have held fresh rallies to express solidarity with Palestinians and demand an end to Israel’s war on Gaza.
At least 4,000 people take part in a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Geneva. Protesters marched peacefully through downtown Geneva and ended up in front of the United Nations’ European headquarters, where a minute of silence was held for all those who have been killed in Gaza.
Elsewhere in the Italian city of Milan, hundreds of demonstrators called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, while chanting and carrying banners reading ‘Let’s stop the genocide in Gaza’, ‘Let’s save Gaza’, ‘Cease fire now’, ‘Don’t stop talking about Palestine.’
Also, in the Portuguese city of Lisbon thousands of pro-Palestinian protesters took to the streets to demand the respect for the rights of the Palestinian people. Similar rallies were held in Spain’s Barcelona, where hundreds of demonstrators condemned the Israeli bombardment of the besieged territory.