A weeping woman holds the shoes of her husband, who was killed in an Israeli army attack, to her chest. A terrified man narrowly escaped death after a missile blast. Newborns born prematurely. Children die of hunger.
After the war that began on this day last year in Gaza, many such moments have been captured on camera by journalists around the world. Behind every picture there is a painful story.
21 photos that show multiple realities like war, death, suffering, hunger, devastation…
Place: Darir al-Balah area of central Gaza. 9-year-old Khalid Jodeh began to realize that something was wrong with the wrinkles on his forehead that were growing day by day. Then on October 22, his entire family was destroyed in a massive explosion.
The Israeli army, which launched airstrikes from northern Gaza, reached the center of the Gaza Strip within 15 days of the war. Where Khalid lived with his family. Apart from his parents, a brother and a sister were also killed in the attack. Only he and his 7-year-old younger brother Tamer were left in the whole family.
Tamer was not in good condition, having badly injured his back and one leg in the attack. Khalid, only 2 years older than Tamer, encouraged him to live. If Tamer cried, he would hug her and soothe her. Khalid says his parents are watching him from the sky and his crying will hurt them.
Khalid's courage also began to weaken after a while amid the daily explosions in Gaza. Temer died within days. After his brother's death, Khalid wakes up suddenly at night and starts screaming in fear. A few months later, Khalid also died after being wounded in an Israeli attack.
In the picture, 9-year-old Khalid is crying over his brother's death. Photo – NEW YORK TIMES
Place: Khan Younis. Date- 17 October 2023. Mohammad Salem, working for Reuters, received information that Israel had launched a major attack in Khana Yunis. Salem rushed to Khan Younis hospital. There, amidst the chaos, he saw a woman who was crying with the dead body of a child in her lap.
The hospital people were trying to convince her to remove the body from her lap, but she was not ready to believe. Inquiries revealed that the woman's name was Anas Abu Mamar, whose house was destroyed in the attack on Khan Younis. All his family members were killed. The dead child in her lap was her 5-year-old niece, Sally.
This image is by Palestinian photojournalist Mohammad Alalol. Wrapped in a white sheet in her lap is none other than her baby. The child was killed in an Israeli attack on Al Magaji refugee camp on November 5.
Death in Gaza does not discriminate, it can come anytime, anywhere in the form of Israeli bombing. By the time Mohammad Alalul reached home on November 5, all four of his children had been killed. The attack took place at night, when everyone was sleeping.
He says-
My house full of children turned into a pile of rubble.
Rania from Palestine gave birth to twins just a few weeks later on October 7. There was a celebration at home. Rania named one Vesam and the other Naeem. Both were not even 6 months old when they died in Israeli bombing. Rania is crying over him covered in a white sheet. He asks – what was the fault of my children?
Note- Over 40,000 Gazans have been killed in Israeli attacks in a year of war. 1200 Israeli civilians were killed in the October 7 attack. Israel killed 35 people in 365 days for one of its citizens.
Gaza's hospitals began to overflow with the half-dead and wounded following Israeli attacks that began on October 7. Doctors had to choose who to save and who to leave to die.
Hospitals were short of medicines, oxygen cylinders and anesthesia. Many of the injured had to be treated without anesthesia. This image is of Al Aksani, one of the largest hospitals in Gaza. A patient admitted on November 5 had to be treated on the floor. Photo – NYT
In Gaza, some people died from being crushed under the rubble of buildings and some due to cardiac arrest. In many hospitals, doctors thought it better to save people who had a better chance of survival rather than cardiac arrest patients.
Amidst these circumstances volunteers learned to give CPR, so they could save lives. Image is from Al Shifa Hospital. A member of the Civil Defense administers CPR to a man injured in an Israeli attack on October 16. Photo – Guardian
Due to lack of space in hospitals, doctors had to make tables for patients themselves. Israel's attack caused people to flock to Gaza's hospitals not only for treatment, but also for shelter.
This continued for some time, after which Israel began targeting hospitals as well. Photo – NYT
More than 50 thousand pregnant women were affected in the Gaza war. On November 20, 2023, 29 pregnant women gave birth to premature babies at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, who were safely evacuated and transferred to an Egyptian hospital amid Israeli military operations at the hospital. Photo credit- AFP
Note- 31 of Gaza's 36 hospitals have been heavily damaged in Israeli airstrikes. The largest hospital, Al Shifa, was completely destroyed.
This picture is from 13 March 2024. It was the month of Ramadan, but the war was going on. Meanwhile, a Palestinian girl in the crowd is trying to get food.
Many survivors of the Israeli attack in Gaza starved to death. On February 29, Israeli soldiers opened fire on Gazans who had come to eat. According to news agency Reuters, 112 Palestinians were killed during this. When 760 people were injured.
In clarification, the Israeli army only said-
Everyone started looting the necessary goods. They were moving towards us, we thought they might be dangerous, so we opened fire.
On May 27, the Israeli army attacked the town of Rafah, located on the southern edge of Gaza. During this war, many camps of homeless people and their belongings were burnt to ashes. Palestinian children are searching for food in the ashes. Photo – Reuters
During the 365-day war, Israel was often accused of stopping trucks loaded with food from entering Gaza. Allegations and counter-allegations continued for weeks. People continued to starve in Gaza. Meanwhile, food was dropped there by parachute on 23 April. Photo-AFP
Note- Gaza is surrounded by Israel to the north and east. Egypt to the south and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. As soon as the war began, Israel first began a blockade of Gaza. Gaza Defense Minister Yoav Galant said that we will cut off all food and water from Gaza. Since then, no goods, from food to medicine, enter Gaza without Israeli approval.
Death is not the most painful thing in Gaza. It is more painful to be exposed, tortured and humiliated. That December 8, journalist Moti Milrod of the Israeli media house Haaretz took a photo after a clash between the Israeli army and Hamas terrorists.
The image shows Israeli forces carrying half-naked Palestinians into trucks. A woman and some small children are in the truck. This was followed by several media reports claiming that Israel was detaining and torturing innocent Palestinians without any evidence.
Heba, an eyewitness, described her ordeal to Al Jazeera. He said – it was a day that cannot be forgotten. First they tortured my husband. After this his jaw was broken. They hit him hard on the face. They continued to beat my husband until his hands began to bleed.
He said – the soldiers first disembarked all the men, tortured and then killed them. We were seeing all this. We felt it was our turn. Heba's son Adi Salem was one of the few who escaped alive.
In all religions Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Jewish the dead person is given farewell with full respect. When more than 100 people are killed every day in the war, and families are being destroyed, Palestinians cannot even expect to be buried with dignity.
This photo is from November 22, when Palestinians killed in an Israeli attack were buried on top of each other. Photo-AFP
On 12 December 2023, Israeli forces launched a heavy bombardment near a Kuwaiti hospital in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip. Sidal Abu Jamia, a Palestinian girl sleeping in a tent outside the hospital, died of a bullet wound to the head after the blast. The nurse wrote his name and address on his stomach to identify him.
A woman is pulled from the rubble after her house was destroyed in an Israeli attack on June 14. People in Gaza have died buried under the rubble of their homes.
Palestinians returning to see their homes destroyed after Israeli airstrikes on October 9. The total population of Palestine is around 21 lakhs. Since the start of the war, more than 1.7 million people have fled their homes and moved to camps.
(Note- There is so much rubble in Gaza that Egypt's largest pyramid, Giza, can be filled 11 times. Along with 10 thousand people, even the missiles that did not explode are buried in the debris.)
A weeping Palestinian woman holds bloodstained shoes close to her chest as a last sign of her husband's death in an Israeli airstrike.
In July, the bodies of Palestinians were collected from Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis and brought for cremation. During this time, a crying Palestinian child clutches his father's shoes, the last memory of his father.
On March 4, 2024, 9-year-old Yazan Kaferneh died of starvation in Gaza. His mother, weeping, said that no miracle was needed to save Yajna but timely provision of nutritious food.
He had the disease from birth. After the war began, due to lack of proper food, his illness continued to worsen and he finally starved to death. On March 22, UNICEF said in its report that 2.2 million people in Gaza, like Yazan, do not have enough food to eat properly. Since the start of the war, more than 1 million people here are living on hunger or half-fed.
5-year-old Aya is one of thousands of Gazan children who have lived with their families in a UN relief camp since the war began. With a toy in her hand, Aya watches Israeli fighter planes fly over the camp carrying bombs and gunpowder.
After the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, the first day of the war, the sound of Israeli fighter jets echoed in the skies over Gaza. Meanwhile, a UN school kid is holding his sister on his lap and looking up at the sky.
( Note- So far 16 thousand children have been killed in the Gaza war, more than 18 thousand children have been orphaned)
Image Credit: (Divya-Bhaskar): Images/graphics belong to (Divya-Bhaskar).
