Ahmed’s Testimony

Palestinians in Gaza are being bombarded with air strikes and shelling, day and night. An already desperate reality of military blockade has been made even worse, with electricity and water shortages increasing and hospitals overloaded. As we come out of Shabbat, our day of rest, Na’amod is thinking of those for whom rest is continually denied.

Ahmed Alnaouq is a journalist from Gaza, and wrote this piece for an Israeli audience (originally in Hebrew), to shed light on the personal experiences and testimonies of Palestinians, which are almost impossible to find in Israeli media. We share Ahmed’s commitment to demanding a political solution, and call on our community to read these words and join us in working towards freedom and justice for all.

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Hi, my name is Ahmed, a journalist from Gaza and one of the founders of the page, ‘We Beyond the Wall’. Yesterday the war escalated to another level, and I wanted to write about this — the decision of the Israeli military to begin bombarding residential towers.

Perhaps you heard that on Tuesday, in the afternoon, Hanadi Tower was bombed — a thirteen-floor tower which was considered one of the nicest in Gaza.

On each floor of the tower there were at least four apartments, all civilian, and the tower was wiped off the face of the earth. More than 50 families were uprooted from their homes — and most of their property was lost in the rubble.

Harrowing videos are circulating on the internet, in which you can see the families, in a long line with suitcase that were packed up quickly, leaving and becoming refugees.

The second tower was bombed today in the early hours of the morning — its name was Al-Jawhara Tower.

Most media working in Gaza worked from that building: Palestine Newspaper, Al-Arabi, Al-Araqi, Al-Nujaba Channel, Al-Surya, and the Palestinian Centre for Dialogue and Democracy, as well as a dozen others. Its demolition was a fatal blow for all Gazan press, as well as the families that lived in it and were rendered homeless.

The bombardment of older buildings, making tens of poor families homeless, was a terrible move which further intensified the flames of war.

On its part, Hamas conditioned the escalation of its offensive yesterday — namely, launching a barrage of rockets towards Tel Aviv — on Israel holding back from bombarding the residential towers of innocent civilians.

Consequently, the military resistance in Gaza, which doesn’t necessarily represent the civilians here, responded to the strike on Hanadi Tower with the shelling of Tel Aviv — and all of us were plunged further into the terrible cycle of violence, bombardment and death.

Those of us in Gaza will, of course, suffer much greater pain and loss from this — because of the immense gaps in power between the two sides.

This activity yesterday, strikes that intentionally target civilians, adds more fuel to the fire and creates huge outrage. The apartment of well-known Gazan lawyer and activist Fatima Ashour, for example, was hit.

She wrote the following Facebook status in Hebrew: “I lost my home yesterday. And when I went there today, all was already destroyed. Everywhere was filled with glass. I rescued whatever I was able to from there, but I left my spirit there, behind. We’re doomed to be exiled a thousand times, inside our country and outside of it.” Some hours after that, in the night, she wrote another status: “This house is not just walls. These are people have been thrown into the street. These are their memories that were also bombed, clothes, books, pictures, tears, laughter and dreams — each of these were contained between the house’s walls, and have gone. Those dishes that you loved, the beautiful curtains, the small bed, the pillow in which you whispered secrets and worried at night. That smell of food from the kitchen, the comfy sofa in the living room, and all the details of your life, both small and big — all these were bombed and disappeared in a second, before your eyes, and there is nothing you can do but flee, with a naked spirit and bereft of everything.”

The logic behind demolishing these residential buildings, and the displacement of families from their homes, is to apply pressure on Hamas by harming the innocent public.

This is similar to the logic that has guided the blockade for almost 14 years: closing the sea from fishermen, preventing the movement of workers from Gaza, restricting imports and exports of traders, limiting the exit of sick patients — all to apply pressure on Hamas. In reality, of course, harming the innocent public merely generates more hate, violence and anger.

So when Israel writes in its Hebrew media that the strikes are only aimed at Hamas or against military forces and resistance — know that this isn’t the case. Striking residential towers at such an early stage of the fighting proves, in my opinion, that this is a war that also aims to harm civilians.

This is not the first residential tower that Israel has totally destroyed. In the last war many residential towers were bombed. Hundreds of Palestinian families were displaced, and remain homeless even now. I remember it well.

Just imagine: one of your missiles is able to displace sixty families from their home. And what is their sin?

Such bombing is extremely dangerous, and actually picks up from the point the last war ended in 2014. In Gaza there were people that wrote on Facebook: “Now the real war has started”. The bombing of the Hanadi building, and afterwards the Al-Jawhara building, was a declaration of all-out war, on all the residents of the Gaza Strip, one that in principle targets civilians.

Israel — as the state that imposes a blockade that influences every detail of a Gazan resident’s life — is legally responsible for the protection of Palestinian residents that live here under the Israeli occupation. All this will continue until there is a genuine, political solution. And in the meantime, the bombardment of civilian buildings is a war crime and needs to be stopped immediately.

So far 139 people have been killed in Gaza, including 39 children. The Israeli government is now using this bombing, on civilian buildings, to give the Israeli public the illusion of a sense of ‘security’ and power. This is unacceptable, it will not work, and will simply worsen the situation. A genuine political solution must be sought. I want you all to be aware that yesterday homes were also destroyed here belonging to simple people who dream of a quiet life — away from bombardment, death, and ongoing wars.