Explosions followed one another every few minutes, broadcast live on the Qatari channel Al Jazeera. Mid-afternoon on Monday, October 9, the residential and commercial district of Rimal in central Gaza, one of the most densely populated areas in the world, was pounded relentlessly by Israeli army fighter jets.
Suddenly, a building collapsed in a thick black cloud; all around, birds flew away.
"We have come under intense bombardment. Last night was terrible, but the last few hours have been even worse. Fifteen relatives have taken refuge in my house after having to leave their homes in Rimal," said Najla Shawa, who lives to the south of the district.
The area had already been heavily hit in 2021, including a bombardment that killed over 40 people in Al-Wehda Street. "The scale of destruction exceeds that of the 2014 war or [the conflict] of 2021. It's continuous and we don't know when it will stop. A child came with my relatives, I didn't know him and when I welcomed them, I hugged him. He started crying: He'd just gone through two bombardments on the way here. It's beyond comprehension," she added, speaking to Le Monde through a voice message, her voice broken.
The Gaza Strip has been under Israeli blockade for over 16 years and is now under a full siege ordered by Israel on Monday in retaliation for the Hamas attacks. It is now totally inaccessible, even to media. Five Palestinian journalists have been killed there since Saturday. In a provisional toll released on Monday evening, the Gazans announced 687 dead, including 140 children, and more than 3,000 wounded.
On Saturday, October 7, Israel went to war with the Gaza Strip following a surprise and deadly attack by Hamas, the Islamist movement that rules the enclave. Its fighters infiltrated Israel, taking around a hundred hostages and taking control of towns in the south of the country for several hours. On the Israeli side, more than 900 people were killed in the attack and 2,616 wounded.
Shocked at first, then mobilized to take back the areas along the border, the Israeli army carried out heavy strikes on Gaza all weekend. But since Sunday evening, the bombardments have been on an unprecedented scale − even on the scale of the five wars and numerous military operations the enclave has seen.
On Monday morning, several buildings, including a supermarket, were pulverized by a strike in the middle of Gaza's largest refugee camp in the north, Jabalia, killing at least 35 people, who were probably out for supplies after a night of intense shelling. "It's a massacre," repeats a dazed Palestinian filming himself in front of the burning rubble. Behind him, men extract a charred body from the ruins, which threaten to collapse. In another video, a dense crowd wanders through the rubble in search of survivors, shouting "Ambulance!" at intervals, between overturned stalls and the carcasses of charred vehicles. Another strike against a mosque in the Al-Shati refugee camp on the seafront in central Gaza killed 11 people, including children.
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