#Tareq Hajjaj

[fiercynn]

The situation is more terrifying than any previous day. People have been standing in long lines outside bakeries to get a small bag of bread for hours — six hours, seven hours, every day. But in the last few days, over ten bakeries have been targeted in the south, the so-called “safe zone” where the Israeli army told us to go. But it was a trap. They wanted to cram us into one place and start bombing us again. They’re targeting bakeries, and we don’t even hear reports of Hamas members among the dead. One of the bakeries targeted in Nuseirat refugee camp had just received a huge shipment of flour from UNRWA, which had agreed with the bakery to sell the bread from the flour at half-price for the camp residents. UNRWA had just finished unloading the shipment, which was meant to cover the needs of the entire Nuseirat area, when the bakery was bombed and completely destroyed. They aren’t only targeting people and homes. They’re letting in aid, and then they destroy it before it reaches the people who need it. It’s calculated and deliberate. It’s meant to exterminate the civilian population. [x]

this report is a consolidation of voice recordings sent by mondoweiss gaza correspondent tareq hajjaj on october 25, 2023

[alanshemper]

Tareq Hajjaj was still reporting and able to send out audio reports as of October 25, 2023

This could be my last report from Gaza by Tareq S. Hajjaj. Please read.

[disruptiveempathy]

Accompanied by the perpetual Israeli statements promising that the army would invade Rafah soon, the past few weeks served to terrorize the civilian population in Rafah. Thousands began to flee back up north, heading towards the cities and refugee camps of central Gaza. The campaign of forced displacement has been caught on camera for all to see, repeated again and again throughout the war. But the difference during this most recent campaign is that there is nowhere to flee. Wide swathes of central Gaza have been leveled and converted into an open field for the Israeli army’s operations.

—Tareq S. Hajjaj, from "Fleeing Rafah," in Mondoweiss

[chimaeraonwards]

"The stories I never wanted to write" by Tareq S. Hajjaj (2 November 2023)

Mahmoud al-Na’ouk, The Dreamer

Rushdie Sarraj, The Journalist

Ismaeel Barda, The Vendor

Remember them. Palestinians are more than just numbers.

Read the full story here:

[frankoc3an-cantsaveunow]

https://twitter.com/tonipotenciano/status/1714568842490560781?s=46&t=HMQna756egaJvmEVQOi-fw

[palestinegenocide]

Staying human

This week the official death toll in Gaza from Israel's brutal war reached 40,000. The true number is likely much higher because there are many bodies underneath the mountains of rubble Israel's bombardment has left behind. In just the last day or so, United Nations officials were able to access northern Gaza for the first time in months. A short video shared online shows the devastation there. There is virtually nothing left.

It is hard to avoid becoming numb to these stories in the face of such overwhelming horror. I've been returning often to the words of Vittorio Arrigoni, an Italian peace activist who spent a great deal of time in Gaza, and tragically lost his life there. Vik, as he was known to friends and colleagues, would remind people to "stay human" no matter what happened around them.

With only a few exceptions, the actual human stories of the Palestinians surviving this genocide are left out of mainstream media outlets. I'm proud that Mondoweiss has worked hard to center Palestinian humanity throughout the last 10 months. One such story this week is from Reem Hamadaqa, a translator and writer in Gaza. Reem described what it's like living in a tent in Gaza, what it takes to acquire or build one, and how little respite they actually offer to the people living in them.

Tareq Hajjaj filed an incredible testimony from a young man in the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in Gaza. Yousef (not his real name) describes growing up attending summer camps organized by Hamas where he learned basic fighting skills. Yousef's best friend, Maisara, was a fighter, killed by an Israeli drone in July. After his death, Yousef is now waiting for the day the resistance groups ask him to join the fight.

It's worth reading these stories to understand the humanity of the Palestinians living under relentless Israeli attacks, while those in a position to stop the violence either stall or provide the military aid necessary for it to continue. Palestinians are not mere numbers on a tally sheet. They are full human beings and deserve the dignity of being treated that way by the media that covers this brutal war, the occupation, and the apartheid regime Israel maintains.

[houseofpurplestars]

"Keep my stories alive so that you keep me alive. Remember that I wanted a normal life, a small home full of my children’s laughter and the smell of my wife’s cooking. Remember that the world that pretended to be the savior of humanity participated in killing such a small dream.

Remember me, as I prepare myself to leave this world by force and go to a better one — one where the U.S. and Israel do not exist."

Tareq S. Hajjaj,

October 15, 2023

This could be my last report from Gaza

Tareq Hajjaj at mondoweiss

[holyfigtree]

Tareq S. Hajjaj, October 15, 2023, Palestine

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

By Tareq Hajjaj

The situation in Khan Younis is horrific. Since Israel told the residents of northern Gaza to flee south, people came here thinking it would be a safe haven and that there wouldn’t be anymore more airstrikes, destruction, or targeting of civilians. The opposite has happened.

The shellings continue. It was a bloody night in Khan Younis yesterday. Indiscriminate bombing. Terrifying noises that we’ve never heard before, not even in Gaza. Every missile made the ground shake and houses tremble.

[fiercynn]

During the first two weeks of the war, I refrained from going on social media — going through my feed was like walking through a minefield. As I continued to scroll, I would see yet another person with whom I worked in the past or with whom I have had both passing and intimate friendships. As I continued to scroll, I would see friends posting pictures of their friends, and I would know without even reading the accompanying text what those pictures meant. Now, however, after almost a month since the start of the war, I make a point of looking through social media — not to know who has died, but to check in on which of my friends was still alive. After the massive increase in the number of deaths, which continues to climb every minute, I’ve taken to contemplating and focusing on the details of every person around me, wanting to take them all in, to sear their faces into my memory before I lose them — because I am now certain that the Israelis are going to exterminate a massive number of people, including people I grew up with. All of them are friends. All of them are family.

tareq s. hajjaj relayed this piece via voice note from gaza, and it was published on truthout on november 4, 2023. i am terrified that we are going to lose him too. my heart is with him and his loved ones.

[good-old-gossip]

The Fajr massacre: Every 70 kg bag of human remains is considered a martyr 

The bodies of Palestinians killed in the latest Israeli massacre in Gaza were destroyed so far beyond recognition that doctors have only been able to give grieving families an anonymous bag of human remains to bury. 

By Tareq S. Hajjaj

A shroud covers the body of a man killed in the Fajr massacre at the Tabi’in School in Gaza City on August 10, 2024. The writing says “head + parts, unidentified martyr.” (Photo: Fatima Hassona/Mondoweiss)

Zainab al-Jaabari, 79, sits a few dozen meters in front of the scene of the massacre. She is waiting for her family members to return from checking for her seven sons and grandchildren, who were in the prayer hall praying Fajr at the time it took place.

Her family members arrived to see the reality of the massacre with their own eyes: more than a hundred people were killed, and their bodies were now scattered and mixed in the prayer hall in the Daraj neighborhood in Gaza City. It is possible their delay in returning now is due to their horror at what they found, or perhaps because they can’t imagine how to tell Zainab that her seven sons and grandchildren have been killed. 

At dawn on Saturday, August 10, the Israeli army bombed a mosque while dozens of displaced people were praying the Fajr prayer, the daily Islamic prayer offered in the early morning. The bombing killed more than a hundred people, most of whom were dismembered or destroyed beyond recognition. For this reason the identification of the bodies has so far been incomplete.

The majority of the martyrs in this latest massacre are first- or second-degree relatives because the prayer hall that the Israeli army bombed belongs to a school housing displaced families from Gaza City. The decimated prayer hall belongs to the Tabi’in School, and is only used by the displaced people sheltering in the school. 

At the time of the bombing the prayer hall was filled with men. Now, many women who may have become widows and many children who may have become orphans, are sitting in front of the classrooms that were not reached by the bombing waiting to be told the fate of their families.

The Israeli army said that it bombed the prayer hall because there were armed elements from the Islamic Jihad movement and Hamas there, but the displaced people in the school confirmed that there were no armed men among them. Hamas also denied the Israeli allegations and issued a statement saying that there were no armed men in the school.

Zainab al-Jaabari (Photo: Fatima Hassona/Mondoweiss)

“We live in the school, more than a hundred families, there are no fighters among us, there are no armed men among us, they are all children,” Zainab al-Jaabari told Mondoweiss.

“The Israeli army left us nothing; they burned the trees, destroyed the houses, killed the people, and destroyed the land; what can we do? There is nothing we can do; we are children and women here; we cannot fight. Have you ever seen a country do all these criminal acts? Have you ever seen people who have all these crimes happen to them?” she says.

“All we have is prayers; we pray against America that helps Israel to slaughter us, and we pray against everyone who watches us being slaughtered and does nothing to help us.”

“We no longer have anything, and there is nowhere to go; the only thing we have is the sea, and even there, we will find death.”

Al-Jaabari’s daughters went to the Baptist Hospital near the bombed school so they could identify their siblings. “I can’t move much. I sent my daughters to the hospital to check on the rest of my children, but none of them have returned yet; all my sons and grandchildren were praying at the time of the bombing.”

Hours after the massacre, the names of the martyrs who were identified were announced, and among the names were seven martyrs from the Al-Jaabari family. They are Zainab’s sons and grandchildren.

Every 70 kilograms of remains is considered a martyr

In the mosque, people stand in a row close to each other as they pray, and after the bombing, the worshipers remained intermingled as well, as remains and corpses. Large numbers of martyrs were not able to be identified, and entire families were wiped out.

Survivors of this massacre are describing a new and horrifying experience they are being forced to endure in aftermath of Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip: they cannot even identify the remains of their loved ones.

Because the rescue teams couldn’t identify many of the human remains collected due to the intensity of the bombing, the doctors at Baptist Hospital were not able to identify each martyr individually. Instead, the doctors have started collecting body parts in plastic bags and giving 70 kilos of remains to the family of a martyr who has gone missing.

Hassan Ahmad told Mondoweiss that he searched extensively for the body of his 6-year-old son Ali, and after hours of searching, he did not find a trace of him. He then went to the Baptist Hospital to ask about his son, or to find any part of his body so I could identify him and bury him. After a long search that did not yield any results, the doctors at the Baptist Hospital gave him a plastic bag containing 18 kilograms of human remains and told him, “This is your son; go and bury him.”

“I don’t know if this is my son or not, I don’t know what I’m carrying in this bag. They said he’s my son, and I don’t know anything, and I don’t see anything of my son in this bag,” Ahmad explained.

“I collect my husband’s body parts.”

Manar Al-Zaim’s voice is hoarse from screaming. She is still trembling from fear. Al-Zaim, 43, recounted to Mondoweiss how she rushed to the prayer hall immediately after the bombing to look for her husband.

“People were praying there; they bombed them with three missiles when the bombing started, and I saw the fire; I couldn’t control myself; my husband was among them. I ran like crazy to find my husband; I entered the prayer hall, and the fire was burning in it; I found a large number of young men whose bodies were on fire, I tried to put out the fires in their bodies, then I started looking for my husband, I didn’t find him, I found some of his remains and recognized them, but I didn’t find my husband in full.”

“We are all civilians here, fleeing from death, bombing, and destruction, we no longer have a safe place, we no longer have any place to go, here is the Israeli army killing hundreds in the mosque while they were praying, and what did the world do after this crime?”

I saw my father’s carnage

Muhammad Hamida, 12, recounted to Mondoweiss how he found his father, who had been torn apart in the Israeli attack. He says that he went with his older brother to the prayer hall after the bombing to rescue their father, who was praying at the time. 

Muhammad Hamida (Photo: Fatima Hassona/Mondoweiss)

“When we arrived, we couldn’t enter because of the intensity of the fire, blood, and body parts, but we wanted to check on my father. Moments later, we could enter the prayer hall but we couldn’t bear the scene.”

“People were cut up, there was a lot of blood on the ground, and body parts and small pieces of worshipers’ bodies were scattered everywhere. We found my father lying on the ground there. We recognized him, and our relatives helped us drag him out of the prayer hall. We found a human head stuck between his feet when we took him out. I was stunned with fear. I have never seen scenes like this in my life. I hope I never see them again.”

“They will kill us all; we are here alone; no one cares about us. They killed my father, and a month ago, they killed my two uncles, and they will kill everyone who remains in Gaza.”

Fatima Hassona conducted the interviews for this report from Gaza. 

[disruptiveempathy]

“We spent a terrifying night in Rafah before deciding to return to central Gaza,” Jamila told Mondoweiss. “My granddaughters were screaming when the bombs dropped near us. My two girls spent an entire day trapped under the rubble last October when their sister and mother were killed while they were all asleep." “When we heard that same familiar sound that they had heard on the day their mother was killed, none of us could bear it anymore,” Jamila continued. “They kept crying, saying ‘this time we’re going to die like mama and our sister Judy.’”

—Tareq S. Hajjaj, from "Fleeing Rafah," in Mondoweiss

[kissingcullens]

“Come out, you animals’: how the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital happened

“During the massacre at al-Shifa Hospital, the Israeli army shot patients in their beds and doctors who refused to abandon the sick, separated people into groups with differently-colored bracelets, and executed hundreds of civil government employees.”

TAREQ S. HAJJAJ  APRIL 11, 2024 

[hylaversicolor]

recommend reading The stories I never wanted to write and Their lives came into my own, and Israel killed them. These are some of their stories. by Tareq S. Hajjaj

[educatinggenocide]

"The shocking inhumanity of Israel’s crimes in Gaza", Tareq S. Hajjaj.

[palestinegenocide]

Establishment voices express fear of a rogue Israel

Two weeks after Israel attacked the Iranian embassy in Damascus, assassinating top Iranian commanders, Iran responded with drone strikes last night, and the world is asking, What will Israel do next?

The question is posed with anxiety. Israel has defied all western appeals to moderate its conduct in the last six months in Gaza, while the Iranian attack is seen as restrained and “performative” (per BBC and CNN coverage today). Indeed, the news behind the news this week is that Israel is approaching the status of rogue state even in establishment discourse.

A New York Times editorial called for the “pausing of the flow of weapons” to Israel – at long last – because Israel is destabilizing the region and the U.S. is “beholden” to an unaccountable leader, in Netanyahu.

The eroding international support for its military campaign has made Israel more insecure…. Mr. Netanyahu has turned his back on America and its entreaties, creating a crisis in U.S.-Israeli relations when Israel’s security, and the stability of the entire region, is at stake.

Jeremy Ben Ami of J Street also concedes that Israel’s onslaught in Gaza is “a serious setback for the interests and values of the United States.” A longtime Israel lobbyist, Ben-Ami says that Israel has surely committed “significant violations of international law”– thereby undermining Israel’s “legitimacy in the eyes of the rest of the world,” as well as “creating undoubtedly a new generation of terrorists, not just in the Palestinian population but throughout the region and around the world.”

(Time was when only the left was accused of delegitimizing Israel…)

H.A. Hellyer of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace echoed Ben-Ami in an interview with NPR. Israel’s wanton destruction of Gaza has left the U.S. “incredibly isolated”. He described Israel as in essence a rogue state:

It’s escalation upon escalation. And I think that we in the international community, particularly in the United States, but also other allies, just need to recognize, you know, that’s the Israel we’re dealing with, and that’s the Israel we’re likely to keep on dealing with going forward.

Hellyer pointed out that Israel has “no interest in a two-state solution.” And the consequence is:

I’m afraid that it looks like a very destabilizing force in the immediate region.

Israel’s contempt for Palestinian rights is a theme echoed by the president of the Center for American Progress—the leading Democratic Party thinktank – who told Politico that Israel is not a democracy. Palestinians must have equal rights, and let’s drop the piety about two states, Patrick Gaspard continued.

We need to talk about whether the two state solution continues to be the sole pathway to peace Palestinians — if we are going to solve this problem — need to exist in an Israel that is inclusive of their full rights.

Israel and its cheering section here deny that it’s possible for Jews and Palestinians to coexist. “I think that taking out the possibility of coexistence is, in itself, really cynical and tragic,” Gaspard said.

Even Nancy Pelosi is calling for the US to stop giving Israel bombs. While Elizabeth Warren at last called the Israeli actions “a genocide.”

And Rand Corporation security analyst Karen Sudkamp, who spent 10 years in U.S. intelligence agencies, says that Israel is heedlessly repeating mistakes made by the West in the “war on terror” in its contempt for the hearts and minds of Palestinians. It thereby undercuts security for all.

The New Yorker echoed Sudkamp in an article saying that Israel is embarked on a “forever war.” It has no strategy beyond heaping punishment on Palestinian civilians. And this undermines the United States.

Finally, this week we published an important investigation. Tareq Hajjaj reported on the massacre of hundreds of Palestinian civil/government employees at al-Shifa Hospital who were accused of being affiliated with Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Hajjaj’s sources said these victims were not military operatives.

The army then brought out a huge number of men from the group of suspected Hamas and PIJ members and employees, gathering them in the center of the [hospital] courtyard. It then proceeded to execute them, one after the other.

The article has gotten wide pickup in media that are supportive of Palestinian human rights. The U.S. mainstream has so far ignored the massacre, typically– because Palestinians still don’t count for most editors. “The idea that Palestinians have a stronger claim to the ‘right to defend themselves’ never enters their minds,” as our commenter Donald Johnson wrote.