Israel’s bombardment of the Gaza Strip entered its sixth consecutive day, with air raids hitting a refugee camp where at least 10 Palestinians – eight children, two women – were killed and flattening a high-rise building housing the offices of media organisations, including Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, Palestinians on Saturday gathered in parts of the occupied West Bank to protest against continued Israeli occupation and the ongoing bombardment of Gaza. At least 140 Palestinians, including 39 children, have been killed in the Gaza Strip since Monday. Some 950 others have been wounded. In the occupied West Bank, Israeli forces have killed at least 13 Palestinians. At least nine people in Israel have also been killed, with one new death reported on Saturday in Ramat Gan. The Israeli army said hundreds of rockets have been fired from Gaza towards various locations in Israel and they have added reinforcements near the enclave’s eastern lands.
Thousands of Palestinian families are taking shelter in United Nations-run schools in northern Gaza to escape Israeli artillery fire. The UN has said it estimates approximately 10,000 Palestinians have left their homes in Gaza amid the Israeli offensive.
Feelings of anger, hope on Nakba anniversary: Barghouti
Mariam Barghouti, a Palestinian writer based in Ramallah told Al Jazeera, that on May 15, which marks 73 years since the Nakba, there are feelings of frustration, anger, but of hope as well for Palestinians.
“Right now, a lot of the feeling is that we are at a final breath, and this is the time to change,” Barghouti said.
“Anger is an emotion that is very natural when you’re being oppressed, and you’re being beaten. When you are getting messages from the 19 and 20 year olds in Gaza saying we’re just sitting like ducks waiting to be killed.
“We are angry because we have hope. We are angry because we see a different reality. The opposite of that would be apathy, would be submission. It would be becoming what Israel has tried to do with Palestinians and that is pacify us,” Barghouti said. Al Jazeera’s Safwat al-Kahlout reporting from Gaza City said that for the first time in six days since the offensive started, Israelis have targeted and hit the house of senior Hamas political leader Khalil al-Hayya in east Gaza City.
Palestinian groups have responded by firing rockets towards Beer Sheva, al-Kahlout said. According to Palestinian sources, al-Hayya was not in the house at the time of attack. Gaza reporter Youmna al-Sayed reporting from al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City said the hospital is currently the only place where the team is able report live. “It’s the safest place as we know. Shifa has been targeted before but obviously it’s a hospital so it might be the safest place now in Gaza from where we will be broadcasting,” al-Sayed said.
“The destruction is massive. Hundreds of families now have evacuated the building and the building next to it, and the buildings opposite to it, which means … more families have been added to the list of thousands of families who have been displaced in the Gaza Strip right now. No place in Gaza now seems safe.”