Israel kills Palestinian high school student as genocidal assault on Gaza continues
Raghad’s father had been killed earlier in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip. She was her parents’ only child.
The Israelis continue to kill genocide survivors in the Gaza Strip with total impunity. On Monday, they targeted two vehicles in al-Rimal neighbourhood of Gaza City and Khan Yunis, killing two civilians, including a high school student, and injuring several others.
The strike in al-Rimal killed Raghad Hussein Ashour, who was on her way to sit for an exam. Raghad’s father had been killed earlier in the ongoing Israeli genocide in the Gaza Strip. She was her parents’ only child.
As civilians rushed to the scene to evacuate the wounded and assess the aftermath of the strike on the car, the Israelis struck the area at least three more times to ensure maximum casualties.
The attack in Khan Yunis also killed one Palestinian civilian and injured several others, while the Gaza Health Ministry reported that three martyrs had been recorded over the previous 24 hours.
Since the start of the so-called ceasefire in October, the Israelis have killed at least 1,024 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. A further 3,260 Palestinians have been wounded in that time, as the Israeli assault on Palestinian life continues unabated.
The Israelis, who have expanded their occupation of the Gaza Strip to 60 percent and have recently been instructed by Netanyahu to keep seizing more Palestinian territory, continue to escalate their attacks on the besieged enclave.
The continuing Israeli siege, despite the “ceasefire,” has again brought genocide survivors to the brink of famine, with families struggling to obtain meals.
As the global focus has shifted to the deal with Iran and to whether Iranian negotiators would manage to secure a ceasefire in Lebanon, Palestinians in Gaza have been left to fend for themselves. The guarantors of the Trump-fronted Gaza “ceasefire” have shown no inclination to hold Israel to account for its non-stop violations.
Efforts by Palestinian factions to move to the second phase of the agreement have made almost no progress, with Hamas accusing Board of Peace director-general Nickolay Mladenov of being an Israeli proxy. Hamas spokesperson Hazem Qasem said on Monday that while progress had been made with the three mediators — Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey — proposals presented by Mladenov contradicted those prior understandings. Qasem said that Mladenov’s approach reflects the viewpoint of the Israeli occupation, thereby hindering the achievement of a final agreement.
In other words, the Board of Peace is following its unstated mandate: to provide the charade of a ceasefire and talks while the genocide continues away from the headlines. Meanwhile, Palestinians continue to endure untold horrors, from being bombed to smithereens to surviving on scraps of food in their ramshackle tents, which provide no real protection from the blazing summer sun.
What makes this arrangement particularly grotesque is that it no longer even pretends to be temporary. The daily killings, the starvation, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and the steady seizure of land have become normalised. The daily massacres accompanying Israel’s creeping westward expansion, which has confined genocide survivors to a mere 30 percent of their land, barely make news now.
For Gaza’s survivors there is only the grinding reality of trying to stay alive for another day. Parents send their children out, not knowing whether they will return. Families, which continue to shrink due to Western-funded Israeli barbarism, keep burying loved ones, one after another. What remains is a besieged people trapped between military assault and international abandonment, waiting for their turn at martyrdom.
I’ve never put up a paywall, but this newsletter wouldn’t be possible without your support. If you are able, please consider supporting my work with a paid subscription here, on Ko-fi, or on Patreon. You can also buy me a coffee or two at the link below. Thank you!
How is it possible to feel the pain of that mother. She was still mourning the loss of her husband when they took away the only family she had left. Her child no less.
When will the world understand this Israeli rabid state will not stop until it is stopped by force.
I was at my family’s home in Dair Al Balah today when my mother was browsing the news and suddenly heard her own mother’s voice in a video. Her pain has not left me since, especially knowing that she was her mother’s only daughter. She had also lost her husband during the genocide. I found myself wanting to write a few lines of sorrowful poetry in elegy for that young woman whose photograph has stayed with me..
And I still imagine myself in the place of that young woman, walking through one of the streets, when the area is targeted and I suddenly die.. Israel is killing knowledge, beauty, life, and hope. 😑💔