Gaza Truce Is Not Enough, Say Residents of Bombed-Out Neighborhood

Palestinian children walk among the houses destroyed in Israeli strikes during the conflict, amid the temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, at Khan Younis refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, November 29, 2023. (Reuters)
Palestinian children walk among the houses destroyed in Israeli strikes during the conflict, amid the temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, at Khan Younis refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, November 29, 2023. (Reuters)
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Gaza Truce Is Not Enough, Say Residents of Bombed-Out Neighborhood

Palestinian children walk among the houses destroyed in Israeli strikes during the conflict, amid the temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, at Khan Younis refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, November 29, 2023. (Reuters)
Palestinian children walk among the houses destroyed in Israeli strikes during the conflict, amid the temporary truce between Israel and the Palestinian group Hamas, at Khan Younis refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip, November 29, 2023. (Reuters)

Returning home to find their neighborhood wrecked by bombs, residents of Abu Ta'imah on the outskirts of Gaza's Khan Younis said the Palestinian territory needed a permanent ceasefire, not just an extension of the truce between Israel and Hamas.

Local people fled the area on the eastern edge of the city at the start of the war and did not return until the truce, which was in its sixth day on Wednesday.

"We were shocked to see this destruction. We were shocked to see our homes, our streets, our lands, our yards and everything demolished," said Gihad Nabil, who was recently married and had been living in Abu Ta'imah with his wife.

Standing on a roof with a view of ruined buildings and mounds of rubble as far as the eye could see, he said the area had been home to about 5,000 or 6,000 people before the war. He asked where they would go.

"My house is completely destroyed. My brother's home, my uncle's my neighbor's, all of them destroyed. We don't need this truce, we need a complete ceasefire," he said, likening what he was seeing to an earthquake zone.

As Nabil and another man sat on the roof, talking and smoking a shisha pipe, a group of children down below sat around a small fire built on a pile of rubble and warmed up bread, which they shared.

Three of the children climbed onto the carcass of a car whose pockmarked blue metalwork looked like crumpled paper and posed for a Reuters camera, framed by twisted cables and jagged chunks of concrete.

Militants from Hamas, the group that runs Gaza, triggered the war on Oct. 7 when they rampaged through southern Israel, killing 1,200 people including babies and children and taking 240 hostages of all ages, according to Israel's tally.

Israel vowed to destroy Hamas and launched an assault on Gaza that has killed more than 15,000 people, four in 10 of them children, according to health officials there.

Gone in a moment

The war has displaced 80% of Gazans from their homes, according to UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who on Wednesday described the situation as an epic humanitarian catastrophe.

Abdelrahman Abu Ta'imah, a member of the clan that gave the area its name, searched through his bombed-out apartment, pulling clothes and a pink mattress from the debris.

"I have been struggling and working for 30 years in this country," he said, adding that even before the war life was hard because of the blockade imposed on Gaza by Israel and Egypt since 2007, when Hamas took control of the enclave.

"Money doesn't come easy, then all of a sudden, all the work and effort of 30 years disappeared in a moment. One rocket makes all this go away. Why is that?" he asked.

From the start of its attack, Israel told Palestinians living in northern Gaza to move to the southern part of the strip, which includes Khan Younis and its environs.

However, Israeli forces have also pounded the south, though less intensively than the north. Israel says it targets Hamas infrastructure, and accuses Hamas of putting civilians in harm's way by using them as human shields.

Diplomatic efforts were underway on Wednesday to prolong the truce, which has allowed more aid trucks to enter Gaza and some Israeli and foreign hostages to be released, as well as some Palestinian detainees to be freed from Israeli prisons.

But Abu Ta'imah said a short truce was not enough and he longed for a permanent solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

"Ever since we were born, we've been enduring wars and destruction. Every time we rebuild, there comes a fiercer war than the one before," he said.



Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
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Harris Tries to Thread the Needle on Gaza After Meeting with Netanyahu 

US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)
US Vice President Kamala Harris meets with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House grounds, in Washington, DC, US, July 25, 2024. (Reuters)

Vice President Kamala Harris, the likely Democratic nominee for president, is attempting to bridge divides within the party over the war in Gaza, emphasizing Israel's right to defend itself while also focusing on alleviating Palestinian suffering.

She delivered remarks after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday that reflected a delicate balancing act on one of the country's most divisive political issues. Some Democrats have been critical of President Joe Biden's steadfast support for Israel despite the increasing death toll among Palestinians, and Harris is trying to unite her party for the election battle with Republican candidate Donald Trump.

"We cannot look away in the face of these tragedies," she said. "We cannot allow ourselves to become numb to the suffering. And I will not be silent."

Harris did not deviate from the administration's approach to the conflict, including grueling negotiations aimed at ending the fighting, releasing hostages held by Hamas and eventually rebuilding Gaza. She also said nothing about military assistance for Israel, which some Democrats want to cut.

Instead, she tried to refocus the conversation around mitigating the calamity in Gaza, and she used language intended to nudge Americans toward an elusive middle ground.

"The war in Gaza is not a binary issue," she said. "But too often, the conversation is binary when the reality is anything but."

In addition, Harris made a more explicit appeal to voters who have been frustrated by the ceaseless bloodshed, which began when Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7.

"To everyone who has been calling for a ceasefire, and to everyone who yearns for peace, I see you, and I hear you," she said.

Harris' meeting with Netanyahu was private, and she described it as "frank and constructive." She also emphasized her longtime support for Israel, which includes raising money to plant trees in the country when she was a young girl.

Jewish Americans traditionally lean Democratic, but Republicans have tried to make inroads. Trump claimed this week that Harris "is totally against the Jewish people" because she didn't attend Netanyahu's address to a joint meeting of Congress. The vice president was traveling in Indiana during the speech.

Harris is married to a Jewish man, Doug Emhoff, who has played an outspoken role in the administration's efforts to combat antisemitism.

Netanyahu did not speak publicly after his meeting with Harris. His trip was scheduled before Biden dropped his reelection bid, but the meeting with Harris was watched closely for clues to her views on Israel.

"She is in a tricky situation and walking a tightrope where she’s still the vice president and the president really is the one who leads on the foreign policy agenda," said Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, a Democrat whose city is home to one of the largest Arab American communities in the nation. "But as the candidate, the presumptive nominee, she has to now create the space to differentiate in order for her to chart a new course."

Protesters gathered outside Union Station on the day of Netanyahu's speech, ripping down American flags and spray painting "Hamas is coming."

Harris sharply criticized those actions, saying there were "despicable acts by unpatriotic protesters and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric. "

"I support the right to peacefully protest, but let’s be clear: Antisemitism, hate and violence of any kind have no place in our nation," she said in a statement.

As vice president, Harris has tried to show little daylight between herself and Biden. But David Rothkopf, a foreign policy writer who has met with her, said there's been "a noticeable difference in tone, particularly in regards to concern for the plight of innocent Palestinians."

The difference was on display in Selma, Alabama, in March, when Harris commemorated the anniversary of the Bloody Sunday march for voting rights in 1965.

During her speech, Harris said that "given the immense scale of suffering in Gaza, there must be an immediate ceasefire."

The audience broke out in applause. A few sentences later, Harris emphasized that it was up to Hamas to accept the deal that had been offered. But her demand for a ceasefire still resonated in ways that Biden's comments had not.

An AP-NORC poll conducted in June found that about 6 in 10 Democrats disapproved of the way Biden is handling the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Roughly the same number said Israel's military response in Gaza had gone too far.

Israeli analysts said they doubted that Harris would present a dramatic shift in policies toward their country.

Chuck Freilich, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser and senior fellow at the Institute for National Security Studies, a Tel Aviv think tank, said Harris was from a generation of American politicians who felt they could both support Israel and publicly criticize its policies.

"The question is as president, what would she do?" Freilich said. "I think she would put considerably more pressure on Israel on the Palestinian issue overall."