Palestinians protest Israel’s seemingly endless war: NPR

A year after the Hamas attack, Israel continued its military operations in Gaza, while operations in the occupied West Bank expanded significantly.

For Palestinian civilians caught in the middle of the ongoing conflict between the Israeli military and the militant group Hamas, the consequences are continually difficult and deadly.

The Palestinian death toll from Israeli attacks in Gaza is now approaching 42,000, according to Gaza health authorities, with 39 more deaths recorded in local hospitals on Monday.

Hamas, listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and several other countries, has lost control of the Gaza Strip over the past 12 months, creating a political and logistical vacuum that international aid groups say is I’m having a hard time filling it.

For civilians in the Gaza Strip, there is still no end in sight to the forced displacement that began for many last October, as ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel brokered by the United States, Qatar and Egypt are on hold.

In central Gaza’s Deir al-Balah area, 58-year-old Abu Nidal Musleh lives in a makeshift tent, wearing ill-fitting shoes.

The father of seven is from the same area in northern Gaza where civilians were again ordered to evacuate on Monday, having been evacuated four times in the last year.

Israeli officials say Hamas-led fighters killed more than 1,200 people and took about 250 hostages when they attacked communities in southern Israel a year ago. Musleh was a teacher on her way to school that day.

He told NPR on Monday that he sympathized with the Israeli hostages held by Hamas, but blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for the suffering endured by both sides, saying that peace is in the hands of the Israeli people. argued that this would only be possible if the Prime Minister was expelled.

“Stand up against Prime Minister Netanyahu,” he said. “Please stand up. Then we can have a normal relationship.”

Meanwhile, in the West Bank, violence between Palestinian militants, Israeli settlers, and the Israeli military, which oversees the occupied territory from vast checkpoints and military outposts, has worsened over the past year.

Over the past few months, the heaviest Israeli airstrikes in decades have rocked Palestinian communities in the West Bank, killing dozens of people, along with large-scale raids on cities such as Jenin.

Dozens of Palestinians gathered in the central square of Ramallah, the largest city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, on Monday, waving Palestinian flags and holding anti-occupation placards.

Basma Abu Sway said she came to mark one year since the war in Gaza began, and said October 7 last year was one of the most important days in Palestine’s history.

She said she hoped the sacrifices made by Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank would not be in vain.

“All this blood and all this death is bringing peace to Palestine,” she said. “As Palestinians, we have the right to live in complete liberation.”

Settler violence and Israeli military raids on West Bank towns and villages have killed more than 730 Palestinians since the start of the war, according to combined United Nations and Palestinian Health Authority data.

On Monday, the Palestinian advocacy group Palestine Prisoners of War Club announced that Israeli forces had arrested 45 people across the West Bank between Sunday night and Monday morning.

Rima Nazar, who was also at Manara Square in Ramallah on Monday, said she was concerned and fearful that the Israeli military’s actions since October 7 last year could lead to further Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people. spoke.

“The world is saying that Israel has the right to defend itself. It’s as if it is saying that Israel has the right to defend its occupation,” she said.

Anas Baba reported from the Gaza Strip. Nuha Musleh contributed from Ramallah, West Bank.