There was little shelter and barely any services in al-Mawasi when the Abu Hatab family arrived seeking sanctuary from the intensifying bombardment around their homes in Khan Yunis.
But al-Mawasi was the one place they had been told they would be safe. From early November Israel urged the civilian population of Gaza evacuate to the narrow, sandy coastal strip the size of Heathrow airport.
On Wednesday night, the bombardment followed them to the so-called safe zone, when shelling rained down on their flimsy tents as they slept.
“They dropped leaflets and told us to come here, that this was truly the one safe place,” Bahaa Abu Hatab, one of the survivors said. “My brother took his children to protect them from the occupation’s missiles, but here they were martyred anyway, in this ‘safe’ place, in the tent that my brother set up in this field.”
At least 14 Palestinians, including nine children, were killed in strikes on al-Mawasi early on Thursday, according to the Hamas-run ministry of health in Gaza.
For the Fascists in Israel “human animals” don’t count as people, so for them it’s morally fine to kill those “animals”.
It’s not by chance that dehumanization of those in the target ethnic group is invariably a feature of the kind of genocidal ultra-racist Fascism such as the one in Israel.