The genocide in Gaza may not be in the headlines, but it has not stopped The Israeli-Palestinian conflict

“All the world’s a stage,” wrote Shakespeare. But at this stage today, it seems that there is no place for one part of the world – Gaza. Instead, the lights shine on Donald Trump for his victory in the US presidential election and the Democrats for their defeat.

With the whole world focused on American politics, the media has stopped reporting that people are being exterminated in Gaza. Looking at the headlines, one would think that the genocide was over, but it was not.

Palestinian journalists and non-working medical authorities continue to report: 54 people were killed on November 5, 38 people were killed on November 6, 52 people were killed on November 7, 39 people were killed on November 8, 44 people were killed on November 9, people 49 were killed on November 10.

And these are just the dead bodies that were found. Countless victims lay on the streets or under the rubble of the mills.

The Palestinians of Gaza are being exterminated at an unrelenting pace by US-made Israeli warplanes, tanks, drones, quadcopters, bulldozers and guns.

In recent weeks, the genocide took another ugly turn, when the Israeli army used what Israeli media called the “General’s Plan” – or ethnic cleansing in northern Gaza.

As a result, entire communities are being destroyed in a campaign that transcends military objectives, aimed at the very existence of the Palestinian people.

The towns of Beit Hanoon and Beit Lahiya were traditionally sleepy towns once popular for their agricultural capital and quiet lifestyle. They were famous for the sweetness of their strawberries and oranges and their sand dunes filled with grazing sheep and goats.

Nearby stood the behemoth of Jabaliya, home to the largest and most populous refugee camp among Gaza’s eight camps, with more than 200,000 residents. This is where the first Intifada began in 1987 after an Israeli driver rammed and killed four Palestinian workers.

All areas north of Gaza have been repeatedly destroyed since the second Intifada. But today, they are facing an unimaginable level of violence and destruction that has never been seen before, a “genocide within a genocide” as described by Majed Bamya, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Nations. Mass death, mass displacement and mass destruction were carried out with appalling brutality, turning the entire north into a wasteland.

At the start of this latest campaign, about 400,000 Palestinians remained in the north, down from a million people. These people are given a deadline by Israel to leave but have no guarantee of safe passage or other shelter. Many decided to stay. Those who try to leave are often targeted by Israeli soldiers and killed in the streets. Some who have done it have suffered along the way.

In another tragic incident related to the witness of journalist Motasem Dalloul, who wrote this on social media, Israeli soldiers separated the children from their mothers and pushed them into a pit. Then an Israeli tank surrounded the pit, covering the children with sand and scaring them. Finally, the soldiers started taking the children out of the pit and threw them on top of the women.

According to this document: “The person holding the child was ordered to carry it and leave immediately, it can be guaranteed that the child will be his. Many mothers carry children that are not theirs, they are forced to take them with them, leaving their own in the hands of other mothers. This marked the beginning of a new chapter of suffering, when mothers are looking for their children in the hands of other women, trying to silence the children in their custody until they find their real mothers.”

For those Palestinians who have decided to stay or are unable to leave, the fear continues. In order to drive them out or simply eliminate them, Israel has used a deliberate policy of forced starvation. Its forces are systematically blocking humanitarian aid from reaching the north, including food, bottled water and medical supplies.

In order to hasten the death toll, the Israeli army also prevents medical workers and rescue teams from reaching the injured and others in need of medical assistance. Those who are able to go to the hospital often find on arrival that we cannot provide medical care or safety. Many succumbed to injuries due to lack of medical supplies and personnel.

The Israeli army has repeatedly attacked hospitals that are not functioning properly in the north. This led the UN special secretary for health, Dr Tlaleng Mofokeng, to call Israel’s actions “drugs” on October 25. According to a recent UN report, Israel has implemented a “concerted policy to destroy the health care system in Gaza”, including ” and intentional. attacks on medical personnel and resources” – actions amounting to war crimes.

During the recent Israeli attack on the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, its remaining medical equipment, supplies, oxygen cylinders, generators and medicines were destroyed. Thirty health workers, including Dr. Mohamed Obeid, head of orthopedic surgery at al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, were arrested while providing aid to Kamal Adwan. An unknown number of patients and displaced residents sheltering nearby have also been arrested. The Israeli army tore down the tents, stripped the men of their clothes and took them to undisclosed locations.

The director of the hospital, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiyeh, was interrogated and eventually released, only to discover that his young son had been killed. The haunting sound of his voice leading the Janazah prayer for his son pierces the soul and serves as a reminder of the torture caused by the work of Gazan doctors and their families.

With few hospitals and schools able to provide safety, the remaining Palestinians crammed into residential buildings. As a result, the Israelis’ indiscriminate raids on settlements claimed many lives, sometimes wiping out entire extended families.

As I write this, a house in Abu Safi in northern Gaza has been hit, killing at least 10 family members and injuring many others. Those injured and trapped under the rubble are calling for help, but rescue teams are being prevented from reaching them.

On October 29, the Abu Nasr family’s multi-story home in Beit Lahiya, which had become a shelter for more than 100 displaced people from one family and nearly 100 residents of the building, became the site of a horrific massacre when Israel bombed. it.

No ambulance or rescue team was allowed to reach them, leaving neighbors – some injuring themselves – digging through the rubble with their bare hands, clinging to the faint hope of saving the survivors. Of the more than 200 people who took refuge there, only 15 survived, including ten children, according to witnesses. More than 100 remain under the rubble.

The Abu Nasr family was known for their generosity, always opening their doors to anyone in need and sharing the limited resources they had. After the massacre, the neighbor revealed how the family was feeding the families who lived nearby without getting anything for their children. Despite the severe shortages in the north and the ongoing siege, the family’s grandmother provided them with blankets, food and water, checking on them every day until that fateful day when they were targeted.

This soaring toll captures a genocide in real time where lives are not only lost but erased without trace, each irreplaceable in a web of endless and interconnected loss.

While Israel is trying to extinguish Palestinian life in northern Gaza, it has not slowed down its genocidal attacks across the board. Palestinians continue to face shelling even in supposedly safe areas.

My family felt the pain of this two weeks ago.

That day, just as I was getting ready to go to work, my son cried, “Mom, mom, Aunt Majdiya is on the news!” I rushed to the TV room, where the screen showed Majdiya – a survivor of the 1948 Nakba – sitting next to the body of her daughter Suzan, 47, and holding her five-month-old grandson, Tamer. Family members around them.

The report stated that Suzan and Tamer were killed in a strike at the Nuseirat camp, an attack that claimed 18 lives. Later, we learned that Suzan’s other granddaughter, four-year-old Nada, was also killed while sleeping next to her.

Now Majdiya is mourning the sixth loss in her family. Seeing Suzan’s motionless body and baby Tamer in Majdiya’s arms, her face filled with grief, her hands shaking as she described her loss, was heartbreaking.

The silent grief of Suzan’s children and their siblings, gathered around the corpses, will never be forgotten. The image of Bisan, Suzan’s daughter-in-law and Tamer and Nada’s mother, taking final pictures of her children’s lifeless bodies is unbearably disturbing. Then Suzan’s 17-year-old son, clinging to his mother’s body and asking to be buried with him, is a deep grief that cannot be explained.

Just a few months before her death, Suzan had experienced the pain of losing her eldest son, Tamer, a 29-year-old taxi driver who helped migrants from one place to another. Tameri’s son was born just days after her death and was named after her. Baby Tamer lived for five months before she was killed last week while sleeping next to her grandmother.

In their search for safety, Suzan and her family were forced to flee several times. First, they sought refuge from my brother-in-law in the area of ​​Hay al-Amal in Khan Younis. When Hay al-Amal was attacked, they moved to al-Mawasi, but it was difficult to find shelter in the crowded area. Their next stop was Rafah and then they returned to Khan Younis where Rafah was destroyed.

Tired but strong, Suzan said, “If we are going to die, let it be in Nuseirat near home.” We will live there, even if we die there, but I will not die far from home.” So he and his family made the impossible journey from Khan Younis to the Nuseirat camp, miraculously bypassing the Israeli forces blocking the road between al-Zawaida and Nuseirat.

Perhaps Majdiya’s only consolation in her unimaginable grief is that she was able to bury Suzan and her two grandchildren with dignity, wrapping them in white.

So many families, especially in the north, have been deprived of even the basic means of honoring their dead. Some were forced to wrap their dead in blankets, others in plastic garbage bags.

This inability to give loved ones a respectful farewell makes the pain and sorrow more unbearable. This, then, is intentional defamation. The Israeli army seems to be following the words of retired General Giora Eiland, author of the “General’s Plan”, who said in a Knesset meeting: “The key [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is world and dignity, and with this trick, he takes both world and dignity.”

This is the sad reality of Gaza – a reality hidden from the world’s view, but which requires urgent attention and action. While the world may be consumed by political drama in the US, Gaza is facing systematic extermination, dehumanization and brutality. Ignoring this suffering is contributing to the destruction of people and their history. The Palestinian people will never forget or forgive.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial position of Al Jazeera.