In One Image After the Blast By Saher Alghorra
It was late afternoon, but this restaurant in Gaza City was still bustling when an Israeli airstrike tore through it.
Customers sat at the tables under its tarp, eating pizza or crepes and using the Wi-Fi. Young people liked it here.
In one moment of noise and blood and terror, everything changed. This was a prayer rug. Now it’s a makeshift bandage.
The shock and fear is written on the faces.
Stunned and grieving, people turned to helping the wounded around them.
The scars of past fighting are still visible in this neighborhood.
So are remnants of peace. The restaurant put up these lights during the cease-fire, a few weeks and a lifetime ago.
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After the Blast
Before the war, this restaurant in the Rimal neighborhood of Gaza City served Thai food — back when one could still find the ingredients for it in northern Gaza.
On Wednesday, a bloody day in the Gaza Strip, with multiple strikes, the restaurant was the site of the deadliest. Thirty-three people were killed there and 155 wounded, according to the local health ministry.
I was just across the street when the strike happened, drinking coffee and using the internet at another cafe. When I made my way through the noise, smoke and dust to take photographs, I came upon a scene of the dead and the dying.
Those who had survived were trying to aid one another as best they could. The wounded woman seen in this photograph was carried away to a hospital moments later.
But at least one hospital was unable to accommodate the high number of casualties on Wednesday, according to the health ministry, which put the day’s death toll across the enclave at 59. Its casualty figures do not distinguish between combatants and civilians.
Asked about the target of the attack, the Israeli military said in a statement on Thursday that its forces had “struck two key Hamas terrorists” in the Gaza City area.
“Prior to the strike,” it said, “numerous steps were taken to mitigate the risk of harming uninvolved civilians, including the use of a precise munition, aerial surveillance and additional intelligence.”
Israel was “aware,” the statement said, “of the claim of casualties.”
The strikes followed the collapse in March of a cease-fire between the Israelis and Hamas, which set off the war with its Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel. The Israeli military says it is expanding its operations in Gaza to force Hamas to release the remaining hostages seized in that attack.
Outside the cafe on Wednesday, Gazans despaired at the return of war.
“Enough, enough of the bloodshed happening,” said one witness, Ahmed al-Saoudi.
Written by Peter Robins. Reporting was contributed by Johnatan Reiss, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Lara Jakes and Aaron Boxerman.