PALESTINE faced the most brutal and hostile Christmas as the Israeli military forces continued to starve and kill the besieged nation of Palestine at the hands of Israel’s murderous war on Gaza 14 months ago.
As the world grappled to contain the actions of the tiny Israeli nation backed by the most powerful economy in the world, the United States (US), Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's forces conducted what many global organisations have described as genocide, killing dozens of civilians during the festive season alone.
In what world leaders continued to describe as heinous attacks by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) unleashing terror in Gaza where there is no safe place left to hide, the Eye on Palestine, an organisation with more than 12 million followers on Instagram and X, reported and posted of people trapped in the Al Zytoum neighbourhood, southern Gaza.
According to an Al Jazeera report on Thursday, Israeli forces continued to pound Gaza, killing five journalists in an attack on their vehicle in the central Nuseirat refugee camp and five others in the bombing of a residential building in northern Gaza City.
This brought a total of at least 30 people reported missing in the latter assault, with some reports of attacks in other places not reported.
AMU TV said that the journalists' vehicle was marked as a press van and was being used to cover the activities at the hospital and in the Nuseirat camp.
“The journalists were affiliated with the Al-Quds Al-Youm television channel, a network based in Gaza,” reported AMU TV.
It was not only bombs and bullets the Palestinians had to face each day; another pressing challenge was the lack of energy even to boil water as the temperatures plummeted; three babies were reported to have died of hypothermia in a displacement camp in southern Gaza, and Israel's blockade of food, water, and essential winter supplies continued to make life even more complicated for the civilians.
The strikes came amid ongoing hostilities in Gaza, which has been a focal point of escalating violence in the region, with Lebanon, Yemen, and Syria under heavy military attacks by Israeli forces.
Reports have indicated that Medica on the ground continued to grapple with the mounting casualties as tensions show no signs of easing and Israel is blocking almost all medical and food supplies.
Last week, Pope Francis doubled down on his condemnation of Israel's strikes on the Gaza Strip, again denouncing their "cruelty" despite Israel accusing him of “double standards”.
“With pain, I think of Gaza, of so much cruelty, of the children being machine-gunned, of the bombings of schools and hospitals. What cruelty," the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer.
The 88-year-old Argentine lamented an Israeli airstrike that killed seven children from one family on Friday, according to the Gaza Rescue Agency.
"Yesterday, children were bombed. This is cruelty; this is not war," the pope told members of the government of the Holy See.
Gaza's civil defence rescue agency reported that an Israeli air strike had killed 10 members of a family on Friday in the northern part of the territory, including seven children. Still, the Israeli military told the media it had struck "several terrorists who were operating in a military structure belonging to the Hamas terrorist organisation and posed a threat to IDF troops operating in the area“.
“The reported number of casualties resulting from the strike does not align with the information," the army said.
At least 45 259 Palestinians have been killed in Israel's military campaign in the Palestinian territory, the majority of them being civilians, according to data from the health ministry in Gaza.
The Israeli government has criticised those who have called its actions an “ethnic cleansing” meant to wipe out all Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip.
Israeli officials have accused the International Court of Justice of antisemitic bias and expressed dismay at South Africa and other countries that alleged that the war in Gaza amounted to genocide.
Netanyahu said his country was committed to upholding international law and defending its people. “The vile attempt to deny Israel this fundamental right [to self-defence] is blatant discrimination against the Jewish state, and it was justly rejected,” he said in a statement after South Africa lodged a court application seeking the court to prevent Israel from committing acts of genocide in Gaza.
At the time, Netanyahu said the charge of genocide levelled against Israel was not only false but outrageous, and decent people everywhere should reject it; however, almost all the human rights organisations have reported that Netanyahu’s government was committing genocide in Palestine.