‘No real oversight of how Israeli forces conduct themselves in Gaza’
The killing of the 11-member family in Gaza indicates just how precarious the ceasefire is, says Chris Doyle, director of the Council for Arab-British Understanding (Caabu).
“It highlights that Israel is still prepared to use all force necessary if it so chooses. It also shows this issue of the yellow line … it’s a kill line. It’s one [that if a] Palestinian crosses, you’re going to be executed,” Doyle said.
“If you believe the Israeli version of this, that this was an attack mounted via an attack tunnel, then quite surely, the Israeli authorities will have some evidence of this, that there will be footage of it, that there will be some way of trying to demonstrate that they have acted appropriately. I rather fear that that’s not going to be the case,” he added.
Meanwhile, there is no real oversight of how Israeli forces conduct themselves in Gaza, he said.
“So if a tank does open fire, there’s no real sign or evidence that the commander, the local commander who does that, is ever held to account, or that there is a proper investigation. So these incidents will continue.”
No markings of ‘yellow line’ actually on ground
What’s concerning right now is that whatever the Israeli military is referring to as a withdrawal line, an agreed-upon line, does not exist on the ground. There are no marks, no signs to show.
Displaced families are trying to get to their homes, inspect them, salvage whatever is left under piles of rubble, and get back to their displacement site.
The only sign that is available, aggressively, is the fire coming from the heavy machineguns from the stationed tanks and the armoured vehicles right behind the imaginary yellow line created by the Israeli military. So as soon as people get closer to that line or try to move a little bit inside to their neighbourhood, they’re being shot at either by the machineguns or the heavy artillery or drones that hover at a dangerously low level in that area.
This constantly feeds into a permanent sense of displacement among Palestinians.
Meanwhile, in Gaza City, in one of the reports that we did on the ground, we literally had to check once, twice and three times to make sure that we are in the right place, because it’s unrecognisable, including three of the mid-size hospitals that served hundreds of thousands of families in the central part of Gaza City.
