Gaza's Eid marred by Israeli massacres of children and expulsion orders
Starving and displaced Palestinians have marked a bloody Eid holiday, with Israeli forces raining down bombs that killed dozens of people, including many children, and issuing new expulsion orders.
At least 85 people have been killed in intense Israeli bombardments across the Gaza Strip since the Eid al-Fitr holiday began on Sunday morning, according to Marwan al-Homs, the director of Gaza field hospitals in the Palestinian health ministry.
The majority of those killed were children and women, he told Al Jazeera.
“Yesterday, I saw the little ones in front of the house, refusing to come eat as they were preparing for Eid al-Fitr,” said Ahmad al-Qahwagi, a relative of Shoroq and Yaqeen al-Qahwagi, two sisters killed on the eve of the holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
“They had been planning for the holiday, eager to wake up early and go out to celebrate. What was the fault of these children to deserve such an end?” Qahwagi told Middle East Eye.
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The children were bombed in their home at 2am, he said.
“The missile that struck the house, obliterated it. It was filled with children and civilians,” he added.
The small flat was hit with a missile capable of destroying an entire building, according to Qahwagi.
“Instead of taking the children to celebrate Eid, we took them to the hospital's morgue - some of them were brought in as pieces,” he recalled.
“A three-year-old girl was killed. What crime had she committed? Where is the world? Where are the free people?”
'Instead of taking the children to celebrate Eid, we took them to the hospital's morgue'
- Ahmad al-Qahwagi, family member
Another child, Abd al-Rahman Miqdad, was killed on Sunday night.
“He spent the first day of Eid happy, collected his money gifts and went to bed,” Abd al-Rahman’s uncle, Osama Miqdad, told MEE.
“Then at 12am they were targeted. They were innocent children.”
Abd al-Rahman, three, was killed alongside two other children, said Osama.
Carrying his body as he spoke to journalists, Osama recalled how he bought him new clothes for Eid a day earlier.
“He was happy with his new clothes, he was happy to celebrate Eid,” he said.
Another attack on a tent in a displacement camp in Khan Younis on Sunday killed eight people, including five children.
Rafah under attack
Eid on Sunday was one of the deadliest days in Gaza since Israel resumed bombing the besieged enclave on 18 March.
Overall, Israeli forces have killed more than 50,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 2023, including over 15,000 children.
On the second day of Eid, the Israeli military issued new expulsion orders in southern Gaza ahead of an anticipated large-scale ground attack.
The new orders, one of the largest since the war began, cover the entire city of Rafah and parts of Khan Younis.
Since resuming the bombardment earlier this month, Israeli ground advances have focused mainly on Rafah.
Last week, they launched a surprise assault on the Tel al-Sultan area in the city, leaving the wounded to “bleed to death” and 50,000 others trapped with little access to food and water.
Eyewitnesses told MEE that Apache attack helicopters and quadcopters were shooting indiscriminately at people in the area during the assault.
Communications had also been completely cut in the area.
When paramedics were responding to distress calls from the area to rescue the wounded, they were also attacked and went missing.
They were found more than a week later, buried in a mass grave with signs suggesting they were executed by Israeli forces.
The new expulsion orders sparked another wave of displacement, with Palestinian families seen fleeing on foot from Rafah to Khan Younis.
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