World Opinions Débats De Société, Questions, Opinions et Tribunes.. La Voix Des Sans-Voix | Alternative Média
Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank are marking a sombre Eid al-Adha as the Israeli military continues its deadly attacks more than eight months after the start of the war.
In the besieged enclave, where more than 37,000 Palestinians have been killed, people gathered in the rubble of their neighbourhoods to pray on Sunday.
The Israeli military says it will hold a daily « tactical pause of military activity » along a road in southern Gaza to enable more humanitarian aid to enter, but emphasised that there is no ceasefire and combat would continue in Rafah.
The pauses, which are said to have begun on Saturday, will last from 08:00 local time (05:00 GMT) until 19:00 local time until further notice.
They will only affect a route that leads northwards from the key Kerem Shalom crossing, which Gaza shares with Israel.
Aid agency ActionAid told the BBC it was getting a « confused » picture over what the pauses mean.
This is while the Israeli military is aggressively attacking western areas of Rafah as it advances with its ground invasion of the southernmost city, and hitting areas across central Gaza.
“Those attacks have pushed people into further internal displacement; in the northern part of the Strip, people are not only struggling to deal with unpredictable falling bombs and attacks on their homes … but also the spread of dehydration and hunger,” said Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from Deir el-Balah in central Gaza.
“This is happening on the first day of Eid, where we’re looking at hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinian families, many of them in mourning.”
Al Jazeera’s Tareq Abu Azzoum, also reporting from Deir el-Balah, said Palestinians are trying to cling to a sense of hope.
“Palestinians are trying to do their best, despite Israel’s ongoing aggression, to bring happiness to young children, as many of them will wake up today and celebrate Eid without their parents.”
The Government Media Office in Gaza said in a statement late on Saturday that Israel is preventing the entry of sacrificial animals into the enclave from all crossings, preventing Palestinians from performing sacrificial rituals as part of Eid al-Adha.
The Israeli army on Sunday announced a “local, tactical pause” of military activity along a specific route from 8am until 7pm every day until further notice supposedly to allow more aid into Gaza from the Karem Abu Salem (Kerem Shalom) crossing.
It did, however, emphasise that its soldiers would continue to fight in the southern part of the enclave and that there would be “no cessation of hostilities”.
World Opinions – Aljazeera – Agencies
