One year of war in Gaza — what happened in the October 7 aftermath

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One year of war in Gaza — what happened in the October 7 aftermath

时间：2024-10-09 10:18 来源：未知作者：admin 阅读：次

Palestinians try to pull a girl out of the rubble of a building that was destroyed by Israeli air strikes in Jabaliya refugee camp, northern Gaza Strip, Wednesday, November. 1, 2023.

On October 7, 2023, these Palestinians in Gaza were doing normal, everyday things. A teacher was getting ready to go to work at her new job. A young boy was playing his favourite computer game until the early hours of the morning.

But later that morning their lives quickly turned upside down.

At 6:30am, Hamas launched a surprise attack in Israel that killed more than 1,200 people, and 250 people were taken hostage, according to Israeli authorities.

In response, Israel launched air strikes on Gaza that have to date killed more than 41,800 Palestinians, and injured hundreds of thousands, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

One year later, we tell stories of survival from within Gaza after 12 months of war.

7 th of October — In Gaza City, 21-year-old Tareq played video games early into the morning, hoping his Mum wouldn't wake up to find out.

When sunrise came he finally decided to head to bed. But shortly after, his whole family woke up to the sound of sirens outside.

This photo was taken when Tareq was in Gaza

At the time Tareq didn't realise how bad the situation was.

But hours later, a series of bombings nearby made clear that it was time to leave their home.

At around 8:23 am, local time, Israel declared a state of alert for war, activating its reservists in response to the Hamas attack in Israel.

At 12pm the Israeli Defense Forces launched Operation 'Iron Sword' with strikes on the Gaza Strip by air, land and sea.

That day was also ordinary for 23-year-old third-grade teacher Fatima Fawzi Abu Mutair.

Fatima said she was only teaching at her new job for one month before schools shut.

She was getting ready to go to work, only one month into her first teaching job, when suddenly the sounds of missiles firing from "everywhere" interrupted her routine.

"We did not know what was happening," she said.

"Many hours passed and we had no idea what was happening."

"My father began asking passers-by if there was something wrong. Finally, someone told him what happened and the videos began to spread online and on the news."

A video surfaced of a high-rise residential building and the Al-Sousi Mosque in Gaza City being bombed and flattened.

Fatima and her family prepared for the worst.

13 th of October — Israel began ground operations in Gaza.

While the Israeli military started bombing the Gaza Strip immediately after the October 7 attack, not a week later it placed an evacuation order for more than 1 million civilians in northern Gaza and began ground operations.

On October 27, it began a full-scale invasion of Gaza city.

Armoured vehicles of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) are seen during their ground invasion into Gaza city.

In the first few weeks after leaving their home, Tareq and his family were displaced "more times than I remember", he said.

They fled from shelter to shelter to dodge the air strikes, with very little of their belongings packed.

One of the shelters they were staying in got bombed while they were nearby and Tareq's brother was injured.

A few weeks later they ended up in a refugee camp in Khan Younis, sleeping in a tent made out of plastic.

Tareq said their time in that tent was "a memory I wouldn't like to remember".

Tareq said life in the tent was hard and doesn't like to remember what happened.

Meanwhile, Fatima and her family stayed in their house in Gaza city for a week before Israel called one of their family members at 2am asking them to evacuate the area.

Fatima and her family headed south of Gaza city on foot to reach her father's furniture shop where they would seek shelter.

"We lived in the shop and my father would go in his car to our house and bring us the things we needed, such as food, clothes, and other things," she said.

Their home back in Gaza city was bombed. They could not go back.

"We had four floors, nothing remained of our home," she said.

"We moved around Gaza between the houses of the shop and neighbours because the place we were sheltering was dangerous," she said.

15 th of November — Israeli forces invaded the al-Shifa Hospital.

It was one of a few fully functioning hospitals left at the time where 650 patients were being cared for.

WHO staff who gained access to the hospital after its invasion described horrifying scenes of bodies only partially buried, with their limbs sticking out, and the stench of decomposing corpses.

Israel claimed Hamas operation headquarters were underneath the building and they had been hiding weapons. Hamas and the al-Shifa hospital director denied the claims.

By that point, the death toll in Gaza had climbed to 13,000, of which 5,500 were children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

At the end of November, Fatima and her family were sheltering with her father's friend.

But in the middle of the night, planes began firing missiles at the houses surrounding them.

"Fires began to fall from the house we lived in. We were hiding in the basement of the building.

The volume of deaths and burials have been hard to navigate amid the air strikes.

"Fires began to fall from all sides and the place was filled with phosphorus. We could not breathe," Fatima said.

White phosphorus is a toxic chemical that ignites when exposed to the air and is difficult to extinguish.

Some human rights groups and doctors working in Gaza have said they've seen evidence of white phosphorous use in the strip, something Israel has denied.

They then went barefoot "walking on glass" at night to seek shelter at the UNRWA school.

"We were in a state of extreme fear, running and the atmosphere was dark. We could not see anything, so my father divided us into groups, carrying my younger brothers and running.

"We sat in the school and the school guard came and helped us and brought us water and dates."

Fatima showed the ABC how hard shoes are to come by. These are old pairs she's kept together.

In the morning, Israel asked them to evacuate and they prepared to head towards the south again.

"We saw death with our own eyes. We could not bear it."

Using many different forms of transport they took a tuktuk first, but it eventually ran out of fuel.

They then took a bus, which took them a short distance before it had flat tires from the broken glass on the roads. They walked for hours to reach shelter.

The largest Palestinian refugee camp, Jabaliya refugee camp, in Gaza hit by an Israeli strike three weeks into the war.

24 th of November — The first and last temporary ceasefire.

On November 24, the two sides agreed to a four-day ceasefire in which 50 women, children, and teenagers under the age of 19 taken hostage by Hamas could be freed. Humanitarian aid and fuel were also to be let into Gaza.

Instant noodles were one of the only available foods for Tareq.

On November 27, the ceasefire was extended for two days, and eventually ended on December 1.

Food was already hard to get at the time. Tareq said he'd line up early in the morning to buy water for his family.

The short-lived ceasefire didn't change the scarcity of food and water available.

He said finding fuel was like finding gold.

December

Tareq and his family had learned that their home in Gaza City had been destroyed in an air strike, leaving them shaken and scared.

They had planned to leave for Australia, after their uncle had applied for temporary visas, which were eventually approved.

They had been sheltering in Khan Younis but had to make it safely to Rafah, where the border crossing to exit Gaza was still open.

They made the dangerous journey partly on foot, and in several cars.

The view from the one bedroom apartment where Tareq and his family sheltered.

From December until early April, Tareq and his family were sheltering in a one-bedroom apartment in Rafah ready to leave through the Rafah crossing. But it wasn't straightforward.

They spent months raising enough funds through a crowdfunding campaign to cross the Rafah border, where they paid $US25,000 ($36,000) in bribes to Egyptian officials.

They finally left Gaza through the Rafah crossing after a lengthy four-month wait, escaping just before the Rafah ground invasion which would follow in the coming weeks.

6 th of May — Israel's military began its ground invasion of Rafah.

The next day, on May 7 Israel said it took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah crossing in Gaza, halting exit, and humanitarian aid.

Palestinians look at the destruction after an Israeli strike where displaced people were staying in Rafah.

In a briefing with journalists, an Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) spokesman said Israeli soldiers were now on the ground inside Rafah with troops scanning the area, backed up by tank forces.

The IDF said it had new information that Hamas had been operating from the crossing area.

UNICEF spokesman James Elder told ABC News the closure of the Rafah crossing would worsen an already catastrophic humanitarian aid situation.

He said aid is desperately needed. But with the takeover of the crossing, it was no longer coming into Gaza.

"(The aid trucks are) the lifeline to a people who are literally hanging on," he said.

During this time, Fatima and her family had now made their way to the Nuseirat refugee camp, five kilometres north-east of Deir al-Balah.

The war was weighing heavily on their family. She watched as ambulances rushed in and out of the camp, losing several family members over the course of a few months.

The daily struggle to find food and water had taken its toll on her and her family.

Displaced people shelter at the border with Egypt, in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip.

8 th of October, 2024 — After 12 months of war in Gaza.

In one year of war the death toll in Gaza has exceeded 41,800 people according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

The death toll in Gaza has climbed past 41,000 Palestinians, with thousands more missing, suspected trapped under the rubble.

Disease and starvation had taken the lives of many loved ones, mostly children.

Oxfam said more than 6,000 women and 11,000 children were killed in Gaza by the Israeli military over the last 12 months, more than any other recent conflict in a single year

Fatima and her family have not been able to leave Gaza yet, but have survived 12 months of war.

Fatima said she just wants the war to end.

To be able to afford the sky-rocketing cost of food and water, they have been forced to rely on donations from newly-made friends online through a go-fund-me page.

"We left Gaza without taking anything with us, in addition to the high prices of food, drink, water, and detergents. I did not expect our situation to reach this point."

Despite this, Fatima said she was still hopeful she'll return to her normal life one day.

"I lost my job, I did not complete my master's degree. I lost our house and everything. I hope this genocide will end," she said.

South Africa launched a case in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on December 29, 2023, accusing Israel of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

On January 26, 2024 the ICJ issued interim orders, having found there was a "real and imminent" risk of genocide and agreed to some of the provisional measures requested by South Africa.

It ordered Israel to take a range of actions, "to ensure Israel's compliance with its obligations under the Genocide Convention not to engage in genocide, and to prevent and to punish genocide".

The allegation of genocide has been strenuously denied by Israel.

While Fatima remains, Tareq and his family have happily settled into their new home in Sydney, where they've been since mid April.