Last week’s mass funeral
of 112 people—including 44 children from two closely related extended
families—was not a new tragedy; it was the agonising, delayed accounting
of a crime committed nearly three years ago. The victims, all belonging
to the Abu Sharia and Al-Hassayna clans, lived in adjacent residential
blocks in Gaza City’s Sabra neighbourhood when Israeli airstrikes
flattened their homes on 22nd and 23rd November
2023. Entire bloodlines were wiped out in an instant: at least three
generations—grandparents, fathers, mothers, siblings, children, and
infants—buried side-by-side. Their bodies, recovered only recently from
under the rubble after a 17-day excavation or identified from temporary
mass graves amid the relentless siege, were finally laid to rest.
This grim scene serves as a harrowing microcosm of
Israel’s war on Gaza: a war that not only slaughters entire bloodlines
in single strokes of industrial scale of violence, but meticulously
ensures that even the dead are denied dignity, safety, or immediate
peace.
On paper, Gaza was supposed to be entering a period of quiet
following the ceasefire framework announced in October 2025. In reality,
peace never arrived. Israeli forces have continued an unrelenting
barrage of airstrikes across the enclave, killing over 1,200
Palestinians—including more than 300 children—and injuring nearly 4,000
others since the agreement was signed. With over 90 percent of Gaza’s
population long since uprooted, families are squeezed into
ever-shrinking pockets of coastal sand dunes and makeshift tent
encampments. Yet even these rudimentary canvas shelters are not spared:
the Israeli military routinely strikes these designated “safe zones,”
targeting displaced civilians in their sleep.
The double standard of Israeli diplomacy has been laid bare once
again by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s explicit rejection of the
US-backed 15-point peace plan for Gaza. Unveiled by Donald Trump’s Board
of Peace as part of a framework to transition Gaza toward Palestinian
administration and eventual self-determination... READ MORE https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20260813-calculated-deception-how-israel-uses-diplomacy-to-buy-time-for-gazas-destruction/
