KHAN YOUNIS, Gaza Strip: The night a blast struck his family’s home in the Gaza Strip, Ahmed Al-Naouq was more than 2,000 miles away but he still jolted awake, consumed with inexplicable panic.
He reached for his cellphone to find that a friend had written – and then deleted – a message. Al-Naouq called him from London. The words that spilled from the other end of the line landed like world-shattering blows: Airstrike. Everyone killed.
Four nights later, Ammar Al-Butta was startled from sleep in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis when the wall of his bedroom collapsed over him. A missile had pierced his top-floor apartment and exploded one floor below.
He lurched over the rubble, shining the light of his cellphone into the wreckage, calling out to his 16 relatives.
“Anyone there?” he cried. There was only silence.
Entire generations of Palestinian families in the besieged Gaza Strip – from great-grandparents to infants only weeks old – have been killed in airstrikes in the Israel-Hamas war, in which the Israeli army says it aims to root out the militant group from the densely populated coastal territory.
Attacks are occurring at a scale never seen in years of Israel-Hamas conflict, hitting residential areas, schools, hospitals, mosques and churches, even striking areas in southern Gaza where Israeli forces ordered civilians to flee.
Israel says the goal of the war is to destroy Hamas following the militant group’s deadly Oct. 7 rampage in southern Israel that killed at least 1,200 people, and it maintains that the attacks target militant operatives and infrastructure.
It blames the high death toll – more than 11,000 people, according to the Gaza Health Ministry – on Hamas, saying the group endangers civilians by operating among the population and in tunnels underneath civilian areas. Israel says the death toll includes Hamas fighters.
But the scope of the destruction and loss of life in Gaza, with entire families wiped out in a single strike, has raised troubling questions about Israeli military tactics.
GENERATIONS LOST
It would take many hours of horror and mayhem before the truth would settle like the ash from the Oct. 20 explosion that leveled Al-Naouq’s family’s home: 21 relatives killed.
They included his 75-year-old father, two brothers, three sisters and their 13 children.
“I can’t believe this actually happened,” Al-Naouq, a graduate student in London, told The Associated Press. “Because if I calculate what it means, I will be destroyed.”
His father, Nasri, had recently told him that his sister Aya’s home was destroyed in northern Gaza and she was staying with them in the central city of Deir Al-Balah, south of the area Israel had ordered Palestinians to leave.
A home can be rebuilt, Al-Naouq recalled replying, all that matters is that she and the children are alive.
But just hours later, they were all dead: Wala’a, the most accomplished of the Al-Naouq children with a degree in engineering, and her four children; Alaa and her five children; Aya, known for her wry sense of humor, and her three children; older brother Muhammed; and younger brother Mahmoud, who was preparing to travel to Australia for graduate studies when the war broke out.
Nine of the 21 are still under the rubble; dire fuel shortages prevented civil defense crews from digging them out.
Identifying the dead was another traumatizing endeavor; many bodies were unrecognizable, most were in pieces.
Al-Naouq’s sister, Doaa, who was not in the house at the time of the strike, told him she couldn’t bear the smell of the rotting flesh of their loved ones under the rubble. Someone showed her body parts retrieved from the site and told her it was one of their sisters.
There were two survivors: Shimaa, Al-Naouq’s sister-in-law, and Omar, his 3-year-old nephew. His 11-year-old niece, Malaka, was taken to Al-Aqsa hospital with severe burns but died after doctors gave her ICU bed to another patient with a better chance of survival, his sister Doaa said.
Doctors have to make extraordinarily difficult triage decisions, and severely wounded patients are being left to die because of shortages of beds, medical supplies and fuel, said Dr. Mohammed Qandeel, in Nasser Hospital, Gaza’s second-largest.
“We leave most as we don’t have ventilators or beds,” he said of patients in need of intensive care with complicated blast wounds. “We’ve reached full collapse.”
COMPETING CLAIMS
Israel doesn’t say how it chooses targets in densely populated Gaza. But Israeli officials say many strikes on homes are based on intelligence assessments that wanted Hamas operatives are inside. Though it gives few details, Israel says every airstrike is reviewed by legal experts to ensure they comply with international law.
Many Gaza families deny any Hamas targets were operating from their homes.
The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and combatants, but says a majority of Palestinians killed have been minors and women, about 4,500 and 2,200 respectively. At least 304 families have lost at least 10 relatives; about 31 families have lost over 30, according to a Nov. 6 health ministry report. That number is likely higher now as intense Israeli bombardment has continued.
Among the families with the highest number of casualties, many have been children.
The Al-Astal family lost 89 relatives, 18 of them children under the age of 10, including three babies not yet a year old, according to an Oct. 26 ministry report. The Hassouna family had 74 killed, including 22 children ranging in age from 1 to 10 years old, it said. The Najjars lost 65 relatives: Nine were under 10 years old and 13 were under 4.
Ammar Al-Butta says his relatives were all civilians with no links to Hamas.
The Saqallah family, his cousins known for their sweet shops in Gaza City, had taken shelter with Al-Butta’s family in their four-story house in Khan Younis, in southern Gaza, heeding Israeli evacuation orders.
The family arrived with trays of confections for their hosts. Joking with his cousins in the family’s living room was a rare moment of respite in the fog of war and displacement, the 29-year-old teacher said.
One cousin, Ahmed Saqallah, 42, spoke of rebuilding his family’s bomb-damaged home and looked forward to fixing the plumbing and painting.
“Simple, sweet dreams,” Al-Butta said.
Ten days later all 16 Saqallahs, from 69-year-old Nadia to baby Asaad, not yet a year old, were killed in the Oct. 24 pre-dawn attack.
UNANSWERED QUESTIONS
A question left by Al-Naouq in his family’s WhatsApp group the night the blast leveled their home – “Tell me, how are you guys?” – remains unanswered.
The distance has made the devastating news all the more surreal. Observing London’s peaceful nights, where sounds of mirth resonate from restaurants and bars, Al-Naouq imagines the airstrikes lighting Gaza’s skies, the screams of panicked residents. His family, lying lifeless under the rubble.
He has no idea where his relatives’ bodies are buried. There was no space in the hospital morgue to keep them. They could be in a mass grave, but Al-Naouq has no way of knowing.
Al-Butta said the Saqallah family was buried in his family grave in Khan Younis. The entire neighborhood mourned when they were interred. “Our eyes are dry,” he said. “There are no tears left.”
In the chaos of the war, taking account of the dead is a rushed, heart-rending process.
It begins with relatives scribbling the names of the dead and missing. They dig into the rubble with their hands, calling out for survivors. Hospitals later issue death certificates.
Grieving relatives, who maintain no one in their households had links to Hamas, ask: Why them?
“Why would they kill children and an old man?” asked Al-Naouq. “What is the military justification for bombing my house? They were all civilians.”
“I wish, one day, I can meet the one who pulled the trigger. I want to ask him: Why did you do it?”
Their families wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, grieving Palestinians in Gaza ask why
https://arab.news/vznaq
Their families wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, grieving Palestinians in Gaza ask why
- Attacks are occurring at a scale never seen in years of Israel-Hamas conflict
What will happen to the survivors of camp massacres in Sudan’s North Darfur?
- Armed groups attacked Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps on April 11, killing at least 100 people in one day
- More than 120,000 survivors fled to Tawila, where water, food, and medical supplies are critically scarce
LONDON: Under the searing desert sun, where the wind kicks up sand and the silence is broken by the murmurs of hunger, tens of thousands of people have gathered in makeshift camps with nothing but bundles of belongings, tired donkeys and empty water containers.
These are the lucky ones, the survivors of an assault on the Zamzam and Abu Shouk displacement camps in Sudan’s North Darfur on April 11 by armed groups reportedly affiliated with the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces.
At least 100 people were reported killed during that single day of violence at the camps and the nearby city of Al-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur. Among the dead were at least 20 children and nine humanitarian aid workers.
Thousands more fled, carrying what little they could manage: bundles of clothing, jerry cans, and the names of family members they could not find amid the mayhem.
The RSF said the camps in question were being used as bases by what it called “mercenary factions.” It also denied targeting civilians and accused its rivals of orchestrating a media campaign, using actors and staged scenes within the camp to falsely incriminate it.
One of the few doctors still working in Al-Fasher, Dr. Yasser Mohammed, witnessed the horrors from inside.
“The attack began from three directions,” he told Arab News. “The casualties were mostly civilians. I saw children, elders, students of Quranic schools, and even our medical staff shot. The numbers are too many. I can’t count.”
Many of the survivors have gathered in Tawila, a locality 70 kilometers away that was already struggling with limited resources. More than 120,000 people have arrived there in a matter of days. Local leaders say the area is suffering from acute shortages of drinking water and medicine. Several displaced people have died of heatstroke or thirst.
IN NUMBERS
• 13.6 million People forcibly displaced by the Sudan war, which began on April 15, 2023.
• 700,000 Displaced people living in Zamzam and Abu Shouk camps in North Darfur.
A video shared by local humanitarian volunteers showed a woman fainting after going three days without food or water. Many people arrived already malnourished, having lived in famine-like conditions for nearly eight months, with a siege crippling food supplies and basic services.
The crisis is only the latest chapter in a war that has torn Sudan apart since April 2023, when a power struggle between rival military commanders plunged the country into a brutal internal conflict.
Fighting has devastated major cities and destroyed vital infrastructure, displacing more than 13.6 million people — the largest displacement crisis on the planet.
The recent recapture by the Sudanese Armed Forces of the capital, Khartoum, from the RSF has intensified violence in other regions, especially Darfur, where civilians have long been targeted.
Al-Fasher is a city in a state of crisis. “Water is nearly gone. Fuel is nearly gone. And the desert heat is relentless,” Ramadan Djabir Nahar Awadallah, an aid worker based in Dabbah, told Arab News.
“Nearly half a million people are now living in one neighborhood, Hayy Al-Jami’a, near the airport.”
Al-Fasher, like much of North Darfur, has been functionally cut off for months. Aid workers say what little water makes it through on trucks is shared among hundreds of families.
“We try to provide water,” said Awadallah. “But it is limited and may run out soon. Al-Fasher has become a city of shadows; people move but they are not really living; they are surviving.”
The burden is visible in photos taken on the ground: families squatting in open fields under the sun; boys herding donkeys between heaps of kindling; girls clutching empty pots. No proper tents, no sanitation, no roads. Just earth, exhaustion and silence.
“This is yet another disaster for families in Sudan who have faced two years of conflict that have caused the world’s largest displacement crisis,” said Francesco Lanino, deputy country director for Save the Children Sudan.
“There is dire need for urgent food distributions, including ready-to-eat meals and nutritional support to curb malnutrition. Provision of shelter and other non-food items is paramount for the new arrivals who are sheltering in schools in open spaces.
“Additionally, there is an urgent need to support or establish mobile health clinics and ensure the availability of essential medicines, first aid supplies, and basic maternal and child health services.
“With such rapid displacement comes the real risk of waterborne diseases and therefore the need to install additional water sources or rehabilitate existing ones, and construct emergency latrines so as to keep waterborne diseases at bay,” Lanino continued.
“Hygiene kits containing soap, sanitary materials and other essentials are needed to reduce the risk of disease outbreaks.
“We also need to be able to provide mental health and psychosocial support, particularly for children and caregivers, who have witnessed traumatic events such as killing and maiming of their family members.”
As these events unfolded, global officials gathered in London to discuss the crisis in Sudan. Yet, in the eyes of many Sudanese and humanitarian observers, something was missing.
“There was not a single reference to the camps under siege or the civilians fleeing,” Shayna Lewis, a Sudan specialist with the US-based non-profit organization PAEMA, told Arab News.
“It is absolutely beyond belief that the conference statement didn’t once mention what’s happening in Darfur right now.”
The omission of civilian protection from the final statement drew widespread concern.
“That silence isn’t just an oversight,” said Lewis. “It’s a devastating betrayal by those who could help but choose not to.”
Avaaz, a global advocacy organization, shared a stark summary: “There is a massive gap between the urgency on the ground and the pace of international action. While statements were read and funding was pledged, people were fleeing on foot, without food, without water, without help.”
Inside the camps, trauma is etched into every face.
“The psychological state of survivors is very bad,” said Dr. Mohammed. “Children and women are living without shelter. Some are still in shock. There are many injuries and we have almost no supplies left to treat them.”
Medical needs go unmet, food is scarce and temperatures are rising, with no reprieve in sight.
Relief organizations have warned that North Darfur is already at risk of famine. In a recent update, the UN’s World Food Programme estimated that more than 18 million people across Sudan face acute food insecurity, one of the world’s worst hunger crises.
As the rainy season approaches, access to many of the worst-affected areas might be further limited. Roads will wash away, disease will spread and the people who survived the shelling might face a slower, quieter death, from thirst, hunger or despair.
In the midst of such devastation, voices from Darfur are still calling out, pleading for assistance.
“Help us,” said Dr. Mohammed. “Send water, food, medicine. Listen to us.”
Eva Khair, director of the Sudan Transnational Consortium, echoed the urgency of this plea.
“The message we are hearing from inside Sudan is clear,” she said. “People want to survive. They want dignity. But they cannot do this alone.”
Kate Ferguson, of the organization Protection Approaches, described this moment as one of grave responsibility for the international community.
“The risk now is that this failure becomes precedent, that inaction becomes the norm,” she said. “But it doesn’t have to. There is still time to act. There is still a chance to protect life.”
As night falls over Tawila, the sands grow cool and the stars shine down on families who have not eaten in days. Some of them will sleep. Some will keep walking. Some will stay where they are, hoping for a relief truck, a food parcel, a medic — anything.
They have escaped one form of violence. Now they face another: indifference.
Iran slams ‘hostile’ US sanctions ahead of new talks
- Iran said the sanctions are a ‘clear contradiction with the United States’ demand for dialogue and negotiation and indicates America’s lack of goodwill and seriousness in this regard’
TEHRAN: Iran’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday condemned new US sanctions targeting its oil network, calling the move a sign of Washington’s “hostile approach” ahead of a third round of nuclear talks.
In a statement, Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei said Washington’s policy of imposing sanctions on the Iranian people was a “clear contradiction with the United States’ demand for dialogue and negotiation and indicates America’s lack of goodwill and seriousness in this regard.”
On Tuesday, the US Department of the Treasury imposed sanctions on an Iranian shipping network and an individual named Asadoollah Emamjomeh, who Washington says is the network’s owner.
It said in a statement the network was “collectively responsible for shipping hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of Iranian LPG and crude oil to foreign markets.”
The sanctions came after Tehran and Washington held two rounds of indirect nuclear talks on consecutive Saturdays in Muscat and Rome, starting on April 12.
Since returning to office in January, US President Donald Trump has reimposed sweeping sanctions under his policy of “maximum pressure” against Tehran.
In March, he sent a letter to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei calling for talks but also warning of possible military action if they failed to produce a deal.
Oman said the third round of talks, set for Saturday, April 26, would again be held in Muscat.
On Tuesday, Iran announced that a technical expert-level nuclear meeting between the two countries will also be held on Saturday.
“The expert and high-level indirect talks in Oman will not be held simultaneously,” state TV reported on Wednesday.
“Iranian and American experts will first hold their indirect talks and convey the results of the talks to the high-level officials, who will then start their discussions,” the report said.
Hamas video shows Israeli hostage marking his birthday
- In the nearly three-minute clip, the hostage — who identifies himself as Omri Miran — addresses the camera in Hebrew
GAZA CITY: Hamas’s armed wing released a video on Wednesday showing an Israeli Hungarian hostage walking through a tunnel in Gaza and lighting a candle to mark his birthday.
In the nearly three-minute clip, the hostage — who identifies himself as Omri Miran — addresses the camera in Hebrew.
His family confirmed his identity, while requesting that the media refrain from publishing the footage. Miran said he was marking his 48th birthday, which fell on April 11.
He is initially shown walking through a tunnel, then seated on a mattress in a confined space, acknowledging protesters in Israel who have been demonstrating against the government and demanding the hostages’ release.
He states that hostages are living in constant fear of bombings and urges a deal be reached as soon as possible to secure their release, adding that he missed his wife and daughters.
Emirati FM holds talks with Nepal’s president and prime minister in Kathmandu
- Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan emphasizes commitment of the UAE to the enhancement of bilateral relations
- Areas identified for improved collaborations include the economic, commercial, investment and developmental sectors, as well as trade
LONDON: Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the UAE’s foreign minister, met the president and prime minister of Nepal in Kathmandu on Wednesday as part of a diplomatic visit to the country.
President Ram Chandra Paudel expressed his country’s desire to strengthen and enhance relations with the UAE, as he and Sheikh Abdullah discussed ways in which collaboration might be improved in several areas, including the economic, commercial, investment and developmental sectors, the Emirates News Agency reported.
In a separate meeting, Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli also talked with the foreign minister about how to boost bilateral relations. They focused in particular on enhancement of economic and trade cooperation, and explored sectors that could help support sustainable development in both countries.
Sheikh Abdullah said his country is committed to the strengthening of relations with Nepal and investment in available opportunities, and he praised the ongoing development of cooperation in various sectors.
Other officials present at the meetings included Ahmed bin Ali Al-Sayegh, an Emirati minister of state; Saeed Mubarak Al-Hajeri, assistant minister for economic and trade affairs; Abdulla Balalaa, assistant minister of foreign affairs for energy and sustainability affairs; and Abdullah Al-Shamsi, the UAE’s ambassador to Nepal.
Israel police evacuate towns as bushfires spread near Jerusalem
- Towns located about 20 kilometers west of Jerusalem were evacuated
- “We do not know how this fire will develop,” Netanyahu said
BET SHEMESH, Israel: Israeli police evacuated several towns near Jerusalem on Wednesday as rapidly spreading bushfires tore through the area, prompting Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to consider appealing to Greece for emergency assistance.
Towns located about 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of Jerusalem were evacuated, police and Israeli media said, while firefighting teams scrambled to contain the advancing blaze.
Speaking from the national fire service headquarters, Netanyahu directed his staff to initiate contact with Greece, and potentially other nations, to request support should international reinforcements become necessary.
“We do not know how this fire will develop,” Netanyahu said, calling for increased measures to douse the flames.
“It simply cannot reach” Jerusalem, he added.
“Of course, defend the communities in range” of the city, he went on, saying he “would prepare reserves from other countries such as Greece.”
Greece battled a spate of deadly wildfires last year, including a massive blaze that forced thousands to flee their homes and reached the suburbs of Athens before it was brought under control.
The fire near Jerusalem ignited Wednesday morning in wooded areas amid an intense heatwave and quickly escalated.
Footage captured by AFP showed emergency aircraft dousing the area with water and fire retardants in an effort to halt the spread.
Wildfires are a recurrent threat in Israel during periods of extreme heat.
