“Within minutes, our house turned into dust… Not even a memory left – not a wall or a room. We’re 20 people in a torn tent, there's no water to drink or electricity to light the nights.”
—Abu Ahmed, Gaza City

“I did my best to be ready for this moment, but no one can be ready to leave home with no return.”
—Sara Awad, a writer and translator in Gaza City 

Hundreds of thousands of people are fleeing Gaza City in northern Gaza—with nowhere to go. Desperately fleeing for their lives, and met by death on the march.

Trucks, cars, donkey carts overflowing with whatever starving people can grab in a mad scramble to escape death. Mattresses, furniture, family heirlooms... tents if they are lucky... children and the elderly piled on top of belongings, or forced to walk on foot. And many leave empty handed. According to Al Jazeera journalist Hind Khoudary, “A lot of people say Israeli forces did not leave them with any choice: They literally had to flee their homes under endless artillery shelling and quadcopter attacks. Most of the people we see here did not even have time to take any of their belongings.”

This past week, Israel launched a scorched-earth ground offensive to ethnically cleanse Gaza City, by using every mechanism of death to force every one of the hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who are still sheltering there to leave the city and head south. And then to raze this ancient, historic city to the ground.

For weeks, Israel has paved the way for its ground invasion with relentless attacks from the air. Israel is destroying Gaza City block by block, “turning the skyline black with smoke and forcing tens of thousands to flee.”

Israel deployed artillery and quadcopter drones to wreak further devastation. They are using explosive-laden robots which Palestinians say “feel like an earthquake” when the bombs are detonated. They are dropping fiery missiles into tents, bombing people in their homes, and even shooting at people as they flee. 

All amidst an internet and electricity blackout, and amidst continued forced starvation. The death toll rises every day: over 83 killed on Thursday, over 44 killed on Friday, over 90 killed on Saturday... a total of 65,174 people killed by the U.S. backed Israeli slaughter. 166,071 injured. And the actual number of dead are unknown and uncounted—buried under the rubble and devastation. 

Fascist Trump Regime Gives Netanyahu the Go-Ahead to Bring Hell on Earth for Gaza

The fascist commander-in-chief Trump continues to give his full-throated support to Benjamin Netan-Nazi. After the ground invasion into Gaza began, Trump invited Prime Minister Netanyahu to visit the White House at the end of September and asked Congress to approve $6 billion more to buy weapons for Israel. Billions for infantry assault vehicles and helicopters, on top of the billions in made-in-the-USA missiles and bombs used to tear limbs from children, to destroy hospitals and universities, to kill journalists and doctors. Full funding and support from one genocidal maniac to another.

On September 18, when the 14 other countries in the UN Security Council voted for a resolution calling for an “immediate, unconditional and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza, the U.S. vetoed the resolution. This is the sixth time the U.S. has vetoed UN resolutions against Israel’s atrocities since October 2023.¹

Meanwhile, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Netanyahu held a joint press conference last week in Israel at which Rubio pledged the U.S.’s “unwavering support” for Israel’s “campaign against Hamas,” which has only ever been a genocide of the Palestinian people. Further supporting Netanyahu’s bloodthirsty plans, Rubio warned that “time is running out” for a ceasefire, and that ending the “conflict” might require a “military operation to eliminate” Hamas. He said nothing about the fact that when Hamas leaders met last week in Qatar to discuss Trump’s ceasefire ultimatum, Israel fired a missile into their meeting! 

The Israeli “Mission” in Gaza = Genocide

All this mass Palestinian death is met by celebration from the fascists that run Israel. Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on Telegram, “Gaza [City] is burning... We will not relent and we will not back down, until the mission is completed.”

But while the U.S. and Israel repeatedly lie that the “mission” is the “destruction of Hamas,” it’s clear that the mission is the decimation of the Palestinian people—genocidal mass expulsion and slaughter on a massive scale.

Israel’s plan is to push people into concentration camps in the south, close to Gaza’s border with Egypt, and to fully demolish Gaza City as it has done in Rafah, Khan Younis and other urban centers. All these are steps toward cleansing all Gaza of Palestinians—including by trying to force them into Egypt, or far-flung countries like South Sudan.

Just this past week, a United Nations Commission of Inquiry published its legal analysis of Israel’s assault on Gaza since October 7, 2023, arguing that “Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians in Gaza.” One of its most stunning and damning findings is that “Estimated life expectancy in Gaza has collapsed from 75 years to just over 40 in a single year, one of the steepest declines recorded.” This commission concluded that this and other Israeli atrocities “are not the accidents of war. They are acts calculated to bring about the destruction of a people.”² (emphasis added)

Children Shot in the Head... Aid Seekers Purposefully Slaughtered... Nowhere Is Safe

In addition to the tens of thousands of Palestinians slaughtered, the vast demolition of Gaza's buildings and obliteration of its infrastructure, here are other elements of Israel's Nazi-like depravity—with the full backing of the U.S:

- Children deliberately targeted. Kathleen Gallagher, a general surgeon now volunteering at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, told Democracy Now! that she and other doctors are seeing repeated instances of children with a single shot to the head, neck, or chest—a sign that they are probably being deliberately targeted. This past week, Gallagher saw six children killed with gunshot wounds to the head. Fifteen other international doctors have reported seeing at least 114 Palestinian children with a single gunshot wound to their head or their chest, which forensic experts suggest are deliberate injuries.

- Death by deliberate starvation. Some 440 Palestinians, including 147 children, have now starved to death because of Israel’s blockade of food aid. And Israel continues to block food aid—leaving the entire population malnourished! The UN reported that no food aid had entered northern Gaza since September 12. 

- 3,000 killed seeking aid. A new report systematically documents the murder of 3,000 Palestinians killed while they were seeking food aid, and almost 20,000 wounded—by Israeli forces. Nearly all of them were killed at or near aid sites operated by the U.S.-Israeli “Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.” The report, from the New Humanitarian, wrote: “Israel has used attacks on people seeking aid as a tool for different purposes at different points in the war: deadly crowd control, forced displacement, and the destruction of the collective ability of Palestinians in Gaza to survive.”

- Targeting hospitals and medical workers. This past week, Israel continued to fire at or near Gaza’s hospitals, including Al-Rantisi Children’s Hospital and Gaza City’s Al-Sahaba and Al-Shifa Hospitals. Almost 20 were killed in the attack on Al-Shifa, and the buildings have no power and little to no supplies—little soap, scissors, gauze, no anesthesia. After a nurse who worked with Doctors Without Borders was killed last week, the organization accused Israel of “medicide”—the killing of health workers and destruction of hospitals to wipe out medical care. On Saturday, Dr. Mohammed Abu Salmiya was working in Al-Shifa hospital when his home was bombed. He received the dead bodies of six of his relatives while on duty, including his brother, nieces and nephews. Targeting hospitals or medical personnel is a war crime. 

- Nowhere is safe. While Israel is focusing its armed offensive in the north, they are continuing military operations throughout southern Gaza. One of the so-called “humanitarian safe zones” is Al-Mawasi, which has seen repeated bombings and tents on fire. In addition, there is no space to pitch a tent in Al-Mawasi, there is no water, and starvation continues. One man with a large family said: “Displacement is as painful as eviscerating one’s soul out of the body. We don’t know where to take refuge. I’m taking my family into the unknown.”

This nightmare MUST END! No one should stand aside. 

End the Siege on Gaza Now!

Stop the U.S.-Israeli Genocide Against the Palestinian People!