American war journalist Arwa Damon, reporting from Gaza, provides a glimpse into neighbourhoods devastated by Israeli airstrikes. The video clip underscores the dire living conditions faced by Palestinians who are now displaced and homeless.
The clip starts with scenes of the “enormous” levels of destruction of the multi-story buildings. What is the size of bombs that did this, the reporter asks.
She is taken on a tour of the wreckage. “This is how people live,” the man said.
“I was going to say. Is this how you are living, amidst the rubble? Damon asks.”
“Yep, this is how we live?”
“This was my parents house,” now of course it’s wreckage as you can see.
“This is just beyond the scope of comprehension,” the reporter says.
“We used to sleep here,” one little girl says. “When the Israelis bombed the house, my uncle was martyred, his four sons were killed and so my maternal uncle was martyred too,” she added.
“We were all inside the house and buried under the debris but thank God we were brought out alive, we were injured but now we are ok.” She pointed out that about 10 people were killed in that strike.
“In this block of houses between 87 and 90 people were killed here because of the Israeli bombing,” said another eyewitness.
“A whole neighborhood caved in because of the intensity of the bombings with tower blocks going down… and this is not to say anything about the many people who are still deeply buried under the rubble…which we can noy get them out.
All of the areas in Gaza that were invaded by Israeli occupation forces have been left unrecognizable, as Israel systematically detonated residential blocks and destroyed critical infrastructure, preventing Palestinians from returning and rendering them completely uninhabitable.
Damon who is the founder of the International Network for Aid, Relief, and Assistance (INARA), observed during her recent trip to Gaza City to distribute aid, “I saw how widespread the destruction is of every single aspect of life that would make the Gaza Strip inhabitable.”
Damon described the scene in Gaza City, saying, “Residents could not recognize the streets or the main thoroughfares because of the level of destruction.”
According to the Israeli Yedioth Ahronoth the Israeli army has demolished more than 35,000 permanent buildings and 84,000 temporary buildings in Gaza since the beginning of was on Gaza after 7 October 2023. —
Dr Marwan Asmar is a journalist from Amman, Jordan
