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‘Surprise and shock’ in Gaza after heavy Israeli attacks
The Israeli attacks came as a surprise and shock for people in the Gaza Strip. Most of the people were actually sleeping and woke to the sound of the massive bombardment.
This ceasefire was very fragile, with at least 150 Palestinians killed during the past two months. But still, Palestinians were not expecting this.
It’s Ramadan, and everyone’s fasting. The expectation here was people would at least spend the last days of Ramadan without any air strikes.
There are a lot of people missing and trapped under the rubble. Meanwhile, we have received information that Israeli authorities restricted all the medical evacuations of Palestinians that used to happen every day through the Rafah crossing.
Palestinians are desperate, and parents are scared.
Trump far more ‘permissive’ of Israel’s attacks in Gaza than Biden was
The Trump administration has been much more permissive in its messaging to Israeli leaders than the Biden administration was.
Both said they were ironclad in their support for Israel, but Biden pushed – publicly and behind the scenes – for Netanyahu to be more strategic, to try to minimise civilian casualties in Gaza.
And we saw some impact of that, at least on the surface. We saw Israel dropping leaflets trying to warn people about when strikes would occur, for example.
Well, none of that happened prior to the launch of this attack on Gaza. Trump himself had said he didn’t care whether Netanyahu restarted the war.
And Trump had already called Gaza uninhabitable, talked about the rubble there and said the Palestinians who call it home should no longer be there, even advocating for them to leave so the US can take over.
All of that rhetoric has really planted the US squarely on the side of Israel, even more firmly than the Biden administration.
A woman consoles a grieving relative beside the body of a victim killed in an Israeli strike in Gaza City on March 18
Katz orders closure of Rafah crossing for Gaza patients: Israeli media
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz has issued instructions to keep the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt closed to patients leaving the enclave for medical treatment abroad, in order to put pressure on Hamas, according to Israeli media.
Dozens of injured and sick Palestinians left Gaza through the crossing since the Hamas-Israel ceasefire came into effect in January, but thousands more need treatment abroad, according to the World Health Organization.
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