We’re sharing this email from Dr. Mona El-Farra, MECA Director of Gaza Projects, who just spoke to her dear friend Laila in the Jabalia refugee camp. Since Saturday, Israel has bombed and invaded the camp in a renewed effort to ethnically cleanse all of northern Gaza. An estimated 400,000 Palestinians have remained in northern Gaza and need our urgent action.
For days, we have not been able to reach the team from one of MECA’s local partners that has been providing psychosocial support for children and their caregivers in shelters in Jabalia camp.
I have received this message from my friend Laila from one of MECA’s local partner organizations. Laila, like everyone in Gaza, has gone through a very horrible time. Israel has repeatedly attacked Jabalia Refugee Camp. Laila’s two brothers and their families as well as her husband were killed. Her son, himself a father of a two-year-old, lost his leg in the bombing. Laila is a cancer patient and has been deprived of her medication since the assault began more than a year ago.
Laila’s update on Wednesday night:
Jabalia refugee camp, the largest refugee camp in Gaza, is under siege. Israeli troops and tanks have surrounded the camp for five days. The people are unable to leave; anyone who tries is targeted by quadcopters and killed.
The camp is subjected to massacres around the clock. The most recent was the bombing of the displacement shelter outside a hospital, where tens of people have been killed.
The camp and its surrounding area is home to thousands of residents – only a few managed to flee to Gaza city on the first day of this siege.
There’s a blockade of the camp. People were ordered to leave the camp and then shot in the road while heading South.
The whole Jabalia Refugee Camp as well as Beit Lahia is subjected to heavy Israeli bombardment. The only bakery in the camp has been destroyed and surrounded by tanks.
The quadcopters fire at everyone who moves with no exaggeration, and today we have tens of martyrs and injured because of this.
The camp is subjected to real famine with no basic food or vegetables.
It is a horrible situation and I am afraid of a big massacre, like Sabra and Shatila. Bodies are in the streets and alleys. Nobody, including ambulances and emergency workers, can reach the injured in the street and under rubble.
Please talk to your government representatives who believe in peace and justice in Palestine.
Please raise this appeal, we all need to act immediately. Ceasefire now. Stop this madness. The hospitals are being targeted inside the Jabalia Camp, health workers were asked to leave the Al-Awda Hospital, another one of MECA’s partner organizations. People of the camp insist on staying; there is no safe place in Gaza.
Please, spread this message and take action now!
Dr. Mona El-Farra
Director of Gaza Projects