#Tareq S Hajjaj

[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

[nevershootamockingbird]

[ begin id: four screenshots of an article by Tareq S. Hajjaj, posted on October 15, 2023. The title of the article is "This could be my last report from Gaza", with the subheading "Keep my stories alive, so that you keep me alive. Remember that the world that pretended to be the savior of humanity participated in killing it."

A color photo shows Tareq speaking to a man an da woman in front of a gray building, either a phone or recording device held in between them. The caption reads "Tareq Hajjaj during one of his field visits reporting for Mondoweiss. (Photo: Mohammed Salem/Mondoweiss)"

Two excerpts from the article read: "Today I'm telling you the news. Tomorrow, I may be the news. I'm not sure that I will be able to write another story in the upcoming days. I'm not sure that I will survive. Israel decided, along with the U.S. and European countries, to wipe out the entire Gaza Strip. They plan on turning us into refugees one more time, and now they're putting pressure on Egypt to host us. But the majority of people in Gaza have decided to stay in their homes, even if it meant being exterminated."

"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." / end id ]

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

[frankoc3an-cantsaveunow]

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

[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:

[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.

[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

[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. 

[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 

[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

[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.

[they-want-my-toes]

The writing of Tareq S. Hajjaj on the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. He is reporting about how he doesn’t know if this is his last report, if he will survive the day, the night. His wife fears for his life when he walks into the streets of Gaza in his PRESS vest, but his home is just as unsafe as the streets. People are being killed not only in the streets, but also in their homes. At least in the streets he can spread was is happening to him and other Palestinians.

“For an occupying power, I might pose more of a danger to Israel than a fighter.

The fighters may die, and their journey will end, but as a writer, my stories can last forever,” Tareq S. Hajjaj.

This is an ethnic-cleansing, a genocide of the Palestinian people. They have been occupied and tormented for 75 years by the state of Israel. Do not ask me to condemn the actions of Hamas when Israel is the oppressor. Palestinians are without food, water, or electricity. Their children are being killed, hospitals bombed, entire family trees lost, do not tell them not to fight back. They were throwing stones for that is the only weapon they had.

“Some people want to criticize the table manners of a starving person. You don't criticize the table manners of a starving person, you let them eat, right? You want to talk about, 'Well, they shouldn't be doing things this way or they should be doing things that way.' All right, get your boot off my neck, and then we'll talk, right?” Tom Facchine.

https://href.li/?https://mondoweiss.net/2023/10/this-could-be-my-last-report-from-gaza/

[fiercynn]

The war strips us of everything that makes us human; we aren’t able to mourn our dead, and we can’t say goodbye to them. People are killed and buried in mass graves far from their loved ones. Authorities have been forced to dig huge ditches for the slain — killed together, buried together. Hundreds of them are entombed together without identification, the brutal nature of their deaths leaving them disfigured beyond recognition. For many, little remains of them but pieces of flesh that are collected in a white shroud and buried with the rest. Every day feels like the next, unending and weighing heavily on the heart. Sometimes, I feel that the end times might look better. To start your day every day by hearing that 500 to 600 people were killed is not normal. What’s even worse is to hear their stories. To report on the death of a person or the demolition of a home has now become old-fashioned. Today, we’re dealing in bulk: mass killings, leveled neighborhoods, a few hundred people massacred in a mosque or a school or a church. Nowhere is sacred enough to be off-limits. [x]

tareq s. hajjaj for mondoweiss on october 22, 2023

[sangcore]

"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" - Tareq S. Hajjaj