A year after the war of extermination.. What does life look like in the Gaza Strip?

Since the beginning of its war on Gaza, the occupying state has sought to destroy the infrastructure and services in the Strip, making life almost impossible, especially after targeting civilian facilities such as hospitals, clinics, schools, ministries, courts and police stations, in addition to civil institutions, specifically those that tried to provide humanitarian aid to the north and center of Gaza City. So what exactly happened? What are the effects of the war on these sectors? How did the occupying state violate the rules of international law related to the protection of civilians? How does the government sector operate in times of war?

Israel began its war by targeting vital sites in the Gaza Strip, cutting off food and water supplies, and then stopping electricity supplies on the third day of the war. The systematic destruction of civilian infrastructure aims to create chaos and internal instability in the Strip, in order to pressure civilians and turn public opinion against Hamas as the ruling authority in the Gaza Strip for 17 years.

As part of this strategy, Israel sought to form an alternative civil apparatus or a loyal bureaucracy that would carry out its orders and manage daily life in Gaza. It tested this and tried to implement it more than once, by communicating with the well-known clans and families in Gaza City and its north. However, the “Gathering of Palestinian Tribes, Clans and Families” issued a statement in which it confirmed their refusal to be an alternative to any political system, stressing that they are part of the national components and supporters of the resistance.

Since the first day of the war, the occupying state has violated the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilians in Time of War, specifically Article 33, which prohibits collective punishment, in addition to Article 14 of the Second Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions. Although Israel has not signed the protocols attached to the Geneva Conventions, they have a binding nature in international humanitarian law, as they have become part of customary international law.

As part of the policy of spreading chaos and destroying civilian life in Gaza, the occupation assassinated the operations officer of the Gaza Police, Brigadier Fayeq al-Mabhouh, who was responsible for coordinating between the clans and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to bring in and secure aid to the Gaza and North governorates. Israel also assassinated seven workers with the World Central Kitchen (a US-based charity) that was coordinating with the occupation army to distribute food to the displaced from the north of the Gaza Strip to its south, which is part of a broader campaign to undermine the means of life in the Strip, in violation of all principles of international law and international humanitarian law, especially the four Geneva Conventions that Israel signed on December 8, 1948.

Destroying the health sector

It did not take long for Israel to begin its attacks on the health sector in Gaza. At the level of hospitals, the occupation army targeted the vicinity of Beit Hanoun Hospital and put it out of service due to the difficulty of accessing it on October 9, 2023. This was followed by the targeting of the Haidar Abdul Shafi Health Services Center and the International Eye Hospital in the Tal al-Hawa area, and the targeting of a residential building near al-Shifa Medical Hospital. A week after the start of the war, Israel bombed the courtyard of the Baptist Hospital, which led to the martyrdom of 500 people in a horrific massacre.

After nearly a year of war, the Government Media Office issued statistics on September 15, 2024, documenting that Israel had targeted 34 hospitals and put them out of service, in addition to 80 health centers, 162 health institutions, and 131 ambulances, which led to the martyrdom of 885 medical personnel, in addition to the arrest of 310 of them. After storming several hospitals in the Strip, seven mass graves were discovered inside them, after the withdrawal of the Israeli army, and they contained 520 martyrs, in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which confirmed in Articles 18 to 21 the illegality of targeting hospitals under any circumstances, and the necessity of protecting health personnel. In addition, deliberately directing attacks against hospitals and places where patients and the wounded gather constitute war crimes according to paragraph 9 of Article 8 of the Rome Statute.

12,000 wounded people need urgent travel abroad for treatment, in addition to 10,000 cancer patients who are at risk of death due to the lack of treatment. After the closure of the Rafah crossing, the restrictions imposed on the entry of aid and food supplies have threatened the lives of 3,500 children due to severe malnutrition. Thus, the occupying state is practicing mass starvation as a tool of war, which, according to the Rome Statute, is a war crime according to paragraph 25 of Article 8, which stressed the need not to intentionally obstruct relief supplies as stipulated in the Geneva Conventions, especially Article 59 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which requires allowing relief operations for the benefit of the civilian population and ensuring the passage of food, medical supplies and clothing and their arrival to the population.

Targeting educational institutions

Before Israel began targeting schools, the educational process had already been disrupted due to the displacement of residents who sought refuge in schools in search of safe shelter. Later, Israeli attacks completely destroyed 125 schools and universities, and partially damaged 336 schools and universities. According to the Government Media Office, Israel killed 11,500 students during the ongoing war, in addition to the martyrdom of 750 teachers, and the occupation assassinated 115 scientists, university professors and academic researchers, in addition to targeting 180 shelters, most of which were schools. In an update published by the Government Media Office on October 3, 2024, the statement indicates that 650,000 students were deprived of attending their schools for the second year in a row, in addition to depriving 100,000 students from enrolling in higher education institutions.

Why did the occupation cut off communications?

Other civilian sectors suffered severe damage, with 611 mosques completely destroyed, 214 partially destroyed, three churches completely destroyed, 150,000 housing units completely destroyed, 200,000 partially destroyed, and 80,000 housing units rendered uninhabitable. The damage also includes Israel’s destruction of the central archives in Gaza City. Direct losses from the war in all sectors are estimated at around $33 billion.

Gaza Municipality employs between 120 and 260 workers, which represents 40% of the total number of workers in the municipality before the war, says Al-Sarraj, explaining that the municipality carries out its work through the Gaza Municipality Emergency Committee despite the risks and lack of resources, and that these workers work tirelessly and without vacations, even on weekends and until late at night. Al-Sarraj estimates that the number of martyrs among Gaza Municipality workers is 40, and that 62 water wells were destroyed and taken out of service, as well as 34 administrative centers affiliated with the Gaza Municipality, and 127 vehicles and mechanisms used for search and rescue purposes. In addition, more than 60 thousand trees were uprooted, as well as thousands of meters of water networks, sewage, storm drains, and roads.

Despite this, the Gaza Municipality is working under the bombardment to deliver water to the citizens, activate what is possible of sewage services, and collect and transport waste, in addition to opening what is possible of the streets and roads closed due to the rubble resulting from the destruction of various buildings and public institutions.

When the journalist becomes news!

The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate documented that Israel has killed 165 journalists since the beginning of the war, injured 190 others, and arrested 51, while the occupation has destroyed 87 journalistic institutions.

Through his work, Al Arabiya TV correspondent Islam Badr, who is based in the northern Gaza Strip, divides the war into four stages: the state of shock, the invasion and oppression, then famine, and finally the stage of concentrated ground invasions. He explained that each stage has its own priorities; at first, what they seek is reassurance about their families and stability after displacement, then escaping death or arrest, then searching for food, and finally facing the continuous bombing and unexpected incursions of the occupation.

Badr pointed out the difficulty of obtaining basic needs in the war, such as providing food and drink for his family in parallel with press coverage. He was injured during his movements and doctors were unable to extract a shrapnel that is still in his body due to the lack of medical resources. He also points out that he lost about 20 kilograms of weight, and that his social life changed completely after his relatives and acquaintances were displaced and others were martyred, which forced him to create a new social environment. He adds that Khan Younis, which was normally ten minutes away from Gaza City, is now like it is on another continent.

Badr recalls his daily routine as a “homebody” who used to divide his time between his work, wife and children. However, all of this changed after he abandoned his home, the mosque where he prayed, and the college where he taught, until his life became focused on searching for “what we believe is safe,” as he put it.

Badr has not seen his family since October 7, after they were displaced to the south. He has not been able to say goodbye to them or communicate with them since then. He believes that this part is the most difficult, as he lost a year in which his children grew up without him being by their side. For example, his daughter Maria was unable to speak, but after a year of war, she was able to speak. As for Sarah, she learned the alphabet and writing.

Islam's situation is similar to that of Moamen Al-Sharafi, the Al Jazeera correspondent, who no longer has "official working hours" in his daily dictionary. He added that his relationship with his colleagues developed during the war until they became like one family, living all the details of their daily lives together, far from their families.

He explained that his life was divided between meeting his family's needs and his journalistic work, but social life was almost non-existent, and there was no time to communicate with friends or relatives. Al-Sharafi believes that his life turned "180 degrees" after the martyrdom of his father, mother, and a large number of his relatives. He added that he seeks to occupy himself with work and its pressures so that he does not have time to think about the people he lost and his personal suffering. He believes that the end of the war will bring other concerns, such as where he will live after his home was destroyed, and how he will be able to restore his social life that he lost due to the martyrdom of family and friends or their travel abroad. Al-Sharafi concluded his speech by saying that civilian life in the Gaza Strip has become completely non-existent, and that he devotes all his time and effort to covering the crimes of the occupation.

The effects of the war are evident in the features of journalist Shorouk Al-Aila, director of Ain Media Foundation, who lost ten kilograms of her weight and was infected with the Corona virus and infectious diseases due to the lack of immunity resulting from the lack of food and clean water. However, she was lucky because she was displaced to a house in Deir al-Balah, which she describes as strategically located because it is next to the desalination plant. After the martyrdom of her husband, Rushdi Al-Sarraj, director of Ain Media, Shorouk took over the responsibility of the entire work of the foundation, noting the difficulty of the task due to the great challenges, especially after the martyrdom of a number of employees in the company and the arrest of others, in addition to the difficulty of obtaining fast internet to upload the journalistic materials they work on, and the lack of the necessary equipment, explaining that she has to walk an hour and a half there and back to get a high-speed internet network. Shorouk moved on to talk to her daughter Dania, who celebrated her first birthday, and hopes that the occasion will not be repeated while the war is raging.

Before the war, Shurooq and her husband were in Saudi Arabia, but they decided to return to the Gaza Strip. She remembers their last breakfast session, and the surprise of the bombing. They took cover behind a wall in the basement of the house, and two seconds before the bombing, her husband stood in front of her and her daughter as a protective shield and was injured in the head. She recounts that the ambulance teams had difficulty reaching the place because of the fire belts, which forced them to transport him to the hospital on foot and under the bombing, but he was martyred the moment they arrived. She says: “Until today, I have not seen my husband’s grave because of the displacement to the south.”

One million legal files destroyed and lost

On December 5, 2023, the occupation forces targeted the Palace of Justice in Gaza City, and later blew it up. According to a report by the Independent Commission for Human Rights issued in August 2024, Israel also partially destroyed the Khan Yunis and Rafah Court Complex, destroying more than one million legal documents and files. Israel also targeted 19 police stations out of 22 in the Gaza Strip, three of which were partially destroyed, in addition to destroying the Passports Department, which includes the office of the Director-General of the Police, the Forensic Evidence Department, and other legal government offices such as correctional and rehabilitation centers. The main headquarters of the Public Prosecution Office was also destroyed, as was the headquarters of the Institutional Prosecution Office in the “Ansar Complex,” which was completely destroyed, indicating a deliberate, systematic targeting of the bureaucratic system in the Gaza Strip.

The number of police martyrs in the ongoing war on the Gaza Strip reached five thousand martyrs, in addition to the martyrdom of more than ten judges. On the level of the Sharia judiciary, Israel partially destroyed five headquarters of the system, ten headquarters were robbed, the archives of two Sharia courts were burned, and two Sharia judges, three employees, and three Sharia notaries were martyred. According to the provisions of international humanitarian law, state institutions responsible for law enforcement are considered protected civilian objects, and any military attack targeting them is considered targeting civilians who enjoy protection, as confirmed by Article 43, paragraph 3 of the First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1977.

Emergence of an alternative legal body

Due to the need for an alternative legal body to resolve disputes between citizens in times of war, a legal arbitration committee (regular) and a Sharia committee related to personal status were formed in the (Southern Beach) area. The first is specialized in resolving civil disputes between citizens, based on Palestinian law, and citizens from the North Gaza Governorate and Gaza City go to it. Its rulings are binding on all parties, and the police are responsible for implementing them, as confirmed by lawyer Wassim Labad, who is located in the North Gaza Strip, stressing that after the end of the war and the return of the official judicial body, these rulings will be presented to him for approval or reconsideration.

The Sharia Arbitration Committee consists of a Sharia arbitrator, a legal advisor, and a member of the Reform Committee. Its mission is to resolve disputes related to personal status between citizens, especially alimony cases, and to issue its rulings, which are considered binding. The Sharia courts have also been partially reactivated by establishing a Sharia judge and a court clerk in each of the Gaza governorates. In turn, they work to resolve disputes related to personal status between citizens directly, or indirectly by approving the rulings presented by the Sharia Arbitration Committee. Thus, the rulings of the Sharia judge are considered to have been issued by a competent official authority and are binding on the disputants. The police also work to implement them. For example, in the case of alimony cases, the debtor is detained in a place designated by the executive police for a maximum period of one week, with attempts to resolve the dispute amicably, and then he is released.

Regarding civil status, Labad stated that there is a civil status employee specialized in issuing birth and death certificates. The death certificate is specifically issued based on a paper from the regular legal committee that is issued after the testimony of the relatives or neighbors of the martyr or deceased. However, the problem, according to him, lies in the fact that there is only one civil status employee in the northern Gaza Strip, which may hinder legal work in the event of any harm to this person. Regarding the issuance of identity cards, a paper proving reaching the legal age is given by the regular legal committee and authenticated by the civil status employee. The person concerned must submit this paper to the Civil Status Department after the end of the war to issue an official identity.

Gaza lawyers draft contracts that are certified by the sole employee of the Bar Association in Gaza City in order to give them an official character. If something bad happens to him, the process of officially certifying civil contracts may stop. As for dealings between merchants, there is no legal basis regulating the relationship between merchants in the Gaza Strip at the present time, which has made agreements verbal. This is due to the nature of commercial law, which allows this, given that “custom” is a primary source for it.

(New Arab)