Assalamu alaikum - Gaza residents say the fighting 'never really stopped' as new strikes kill over 100
Assalamu alaikum. Around midnight in Gaza city on Tuesday, people who had been trying to sleep after a fragile ceasefire found the sky lit up again as strikes resumed across the Gaza Strip. Residents had grown used to a tense quiet in recent weeks, but the calm was shattered.
“My neighbours, the Al Mousa family, had their home hit directly,” said Mohammed Shaheen, 36. “We went to bed knowing the army might escalate, but we didn’t expect our neighbourhood to be hit while we slept.”
According to local accounts, Israel said it was responding to the killing of a soldier in southern Gaza and to claims that not all hostage bodies had been returned. One woman was killed outright and several relatives were wounded when the Al Mousa home was struck. Shaheen said his wife and children were hurt, treated briefly at hospital, and then sent back to what remains of their home.
“The army doesn’t want Gaza to find peace,” he said. “Even during a ceasefire they don’t stop. We’re surrounded by rubble and they still bomb us. Gaza can’t survive another round of this.”
Local civil defence officials reported that more than 100 Palestinians were killed in under 12 hours of renewed attacks, including many women and children. Hospitals are overwhelmed - staff say they cannot cope with the numbers of wounded and those who died.
Aid workers and civil defence spokespeople are asking for an immediate, comprehensive ceasefire and for safe humanitarian corridors so urgent aid and medical supplies can get through. They say the situation is catastrophic and needs immediate intervention from mediators and responsible states.
Some analysts argue the strikes were premeditated rather than purely reactive. They say lists of targets exist and that a triggering incident can be used as justification to carry out planned operations.
Survivors who had fled earlier offensives describe fresh strikes hitting tents and displaced families in central Gaza camps. “A tent near our family was hit,” said Eyad Hamad, 28, speaking of life in Nuseirat Camp after fleeing Gaza city. He and others described how the blasts, sirens and smell of burning brought back the trauma of war. Many say they had hoped central areas would be safer, but they now feel there is no safe place.
“We can’t rebuild our lives; everything around us is death,” Hamad said. “The ceasefire is supposedly still in effect, but we’re being bombed, threatened and hunted.”
Shaheen summed up the feeling many now share: “Gaza is devastated in every sense - no homes, no safety, no rest. The war never really stopped.”
May Allah grant the victims shifa and ease for the families, and may He open ways for protection, aid, and a lasting, just peace.
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