When Israel attacked northern Gaza, 26 members of his family were wiped out | Israeli war against Gaza

In the north of the Gaza Strip, two roads run between the town of Jabalia and the Jabalia refugee camp.

The As-Sikka Road runs along the route of the railway that crossed the Gaza Strip before the creation of Israel, connecting it with Iraq, Turkey, Egypt and the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

Running parallel to As-Sikka is a smaller street called Assalia, named after the large Assalia family that lives in this neighborhood.

According to witness accounts, 26 members of the Assalia family were killed and six houses on this street were reduced to rubble by an Israeli attack late last week. The road is now barely a dirt road, according to post-event images reviewed by Al Jazeera, with bodies emerging from beneath the rubble every day.

Ibrahim Assalia, 46, a media lecturer originally from Gaza who has lived in the UK since 2006, was on the phone with his brother when the attack on Jabalia and his family took place.

“Pray for me, they are shelling the area heavily,” Assalia recalled his brother saying on Saturday.

His brother Mohammed and his sisters Weam and Assel survived the shelling. But since then, their problems have only gotten worse.

The bombing came as a surprise – with the withdrawal of Israeli troops from the north of the Gaza Strip, life has slowly returned to normal, said Assalia.

His family had told him that shops in Jabalia were reopening and that prices for everyday goods, from flour to goat meat, were finally falling.

But now the surviving members of the Assalia family are trying to escape Jabalia as Israeli forces return to the north and also increase attacks on Gaza City.

Through phone calls and dropped leaflets, the Israeli army has ordered Palestinians in Jabalia to move west, ostensibly to continue its attacks in the area.

But there was no warning for Assalia’s relatives killed on Saturday, including children and the elderly.

“They were in their houses. Nobody told them to leave,” he said.

Israel has described its return to the north as part of a so-called “cleansing phase” of the war, with Hamas saying its fighters were engaged in fighting there.

Critics and Israeli military officials, quoted anonymously in several media reports, say the reemergence of Hamas in northern Gaza is a result of Israel’s failure to plan for the aftermath of the war, choosing instead to continue the bombing and to reject the talks of a permanent ceasefire.

And it means Palestinian civilians have no idea when the bombing will stop, as the death toll from Israel’s attacks on Gaza has risen to over 35,000.

“Who will die next?” Assalia – who narrowly escaped death in Gaza when war broke out in October – wonders every day.

Generations killed, memories destroyed

Many of the 26 people killed were close cousins ​​of Assalia, other more distant relatives whom he saw less often.

His family members were part of annual visits to his parents in Gaza – memories shattered by the nearly eight-month war.

Last year’s visit, which Assalia made in August before he fell into the trap of war, was more urgent; His father was diagnosed with blood cancer.

Due to Israeli bombing, Assalia’s father was unable to leave the enclave in time to receive treatment and died in the early days of the conflict. Assalia paid $10,000 to have his disabled mother, Fatima, who cannot walk, and another brother, Abdullah, who helped her, escorted from Gaza to Egypt.

During the war, hundreds more members of the extended Assalia family were killed or displaced.

Assalia, a media studies lecturer in London who worked as a news presenter for Palestine TV from 1998 to 2006, said his annual return to Gaza would never be the same again.

“My childhood memories – all were destroyed,” he said.

Like many from Jabalia, Assalia’s siblings don’t know where to go next.

They left Jabalia with their families in panic on Sunday, immediately after the Israeli Defense Forces’ evacuation order, taking only cash and documents proving their rights to their land, he said.

“They just run to the sea because they know it’s to the west, but they just stand on the road,” Assalia said.

There are hardly any houses left and the schools are full of displaced people, he said.

His family’s plight is why Assalia has been pressuring the British government since December to launch a Gaza family program to allow relatives of more than 300 British-Palestinian families to leave Gaza without complications and provide them with a temporary stay To enable Britain to stay in the Gaza Strip.

Her campaign has stimulated parliamentary debate and her petition has garnered more than 100,000 signatures.

It would be a reprieve for Assalia, who is fighting to save his mother and siblings.

Even if he manages to help them, he has first-hand experience of the kind of minefield they must navigate to get into Rafah and out of Gaza.

In early November, Assalia, his wife and their six children, along with two other families who were also British nationals, took refuge in a single room in a building in Jabalia. They survived on a daily meal of canned goods and were injured by the Israeli airstrikes around them.

After British authorities said there was a safe route out of Gaza through the Rafah border crossing, the family made a move. But on her first attempt to get to safety, her car was struck by Israeli forces.

They abandoned the car and escaped by hiding in a nearby tire shop. Soon after, another airstrike destroyed the car and all of her luggage, Assalia said.

The family then went back to Jabalia when they witnessed heavy artillery fire around them, he said.

A week later, they made another attempt, reaching the Rafah border crossing on foot and stepping over corpses along the 15km route.

For the time being, Assalia doesn’t know what lies ahead for his family. He hasn’t heard from them since they left Jabalia.