As Israel attacked Gaza’s north, 26 members of his family were wiped out
In Gaza’s north, two roads run between the city of Jabalia to the Jabalia refugee camp.
As-Sikka Street passes along the route of the railway that used to cross Gaza before the creation of Israel, linking it to Iraq, Turkey, Egypt and the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Running parallel to As-Sikka is a smaller street known as Assalia, named after the large Assalia family that inhabits that neighbourhood.
Late last week, 26 members of the Assalia family were killed, and six houses on that street were reduced to rubble by an Israeli attack, according to witness testimony. The street is now barely a dirt track, as seen from images following the event’s aftermath, which Al Jazeera reviewed, with bodies emerging each day from under the debris.
Ibrahim Assalia, 46, a media lecturer originally from Gaza who has been living in the United Kingdom since 2006, was on the phone with his brother as the attack on Jabalia, and his family, took place.
“Pray for me, they are heavily shelling the area,” Assalia recalled his brother as saying on Saturday.
His brother Mohammed and sisters Weam and Assel survived the shelling. But since then, their troubles have only mounted.
The bombardment came as a surprise – life had slowly been returning to normal with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the north of Gaza, Assalia said.
His family had told him that shops in Jabalia were reopening and the prices of everyday goods – from flour to goat meat – were finally coming down.
Through phone calls and airdropped leaflets, the Israeli army has instructed Palestinians in Jabalia to move west, ostensibly to continue their attacks in the area.
But there had been no warning for Assalia’s relatives killed on Saturday, who included children and the elderly.
Israel has described its return to the north as part of a so-called “mop-up” stage of the war, with Hamas saying its fighters are engaged in battles there.
Critics and Israeli military officials, quoted anonymously in several media reports, say the re-emergence of Hamas in northern Gaza is a consequence of an Israeli failure to plan for what will come after the war, instead choosing to carry on the bombardment and reject talk of a permanent ceasefire.
And it means that – with the death toll from Israel’s attacks on Gaza creeping above 35,000 – Palestinian civilians have no idea when the bombs will stop.
“Who is next to die?” Assalia – who narrowly escaped death himself in Gaza when the war broke out in October – wonders each day.
Generations killed, memories destroyed
Many of the 26 people killed were close cousins of Assalia, others more distant relatives he saw less frequently.
His family members were part of the tapestry of his annual visits to his parents in Gaza – memories now blighted through nearly eight months of war.
Last year’s visit, which Assalia made in August before being trapped by the war,
Like many from Jabalia, Assalia’s siblings are not sure where to go next.
They left Jabalia with their families on Sunday, immediately after the evacuation order from Israeli forces, in a panic, grabbing only cash and documents showing their rights to their land, he said.
“They are just running towards the sea because they know that’s west, but they’re just standing in the streets,” Assalia said.
There are hardly any houses left standing, and schools are packed with the displaced, he said.
His family’s plight is why, since December, Assalia has been working on pressuring the British government to begin a Gaza family scheme to facilitate the exit of relatives of more than 300 British-Palestinian families from Gaza without complications and offer them a temporary stay in the United Kingdom.
was more urgent; his father had been diagnosed with blood cancer.
Unable to leave the enclave to receive treatment in time due to Israel’s bombing, Assalia’s father died in the early days of the conflict. Assalia paid $10,000 to have his disabled mother, Fatima, who cannot walk, and another brother, Abdullah, to help her, be escorted to Egypt from Gaza.
Throughout the war, hundreds of others from the extended Assalia family have been killed or displaced.
