Mar 18, 2025
In the early hours of Tuesday, Palestinians in Gaza awoke expecting their morning would be like any other this Ramadan.
Families, friends and neighbours gathered to prepare suhoor, the pre-dawn meal to prepare for a day of fasting.
The Israeli military, however, had planned to use this moment of communal ritual to stage a ferocious attack on the Palestinian enclave and tear the fragile 58-day ceasefire to shreds.
Soon after 2am, a series of Israeli air strikes targeted dozens of residential buildings and schools sheltering displaced people across Gaza.
One of the first targets was al-Tabaeen School, which housed hundreds of displaced Palestinians in Daraj, a neighbourhood in the heart of Gaza City.
At least 25 Palestinians were killed by the bombardment, including women and children sheltering in the school, which had already been targeted three times since the beginning of the war.
Soon after the strike, Muhammed al-Shawish stood inside among a crowd of survivors and local residents that had come to help.
He had just received the news that his sister and her children were killed in the attack.
“My sister’s husband was killed at the start of the war. Today, they bombed the Tabaeen School where she and her children had taken refuge,” Shawish told Middle East Eye.
“They bombed a classroom next to the one where my sister stayed. She was killed along with her children. Only a boy and a girl survived. Among those killed was a baby whose father never got to see him.”
A previous attack on the school in August was also carried out at dawn, and killed at least 100 displaced Palestinians.
In Shujaiya, a neighbourhood in Gaza City’s east, at least five Palestinians were killed and 10 others wounded by strikes on two homes belonging to the Qreiqe family.
In front of the destroyed home, a relative spoke on the phone, desperately pleading for an ambulance to retrieve her cousin’s body.
“They are telling me to bring her to the hospital myself,” he told Middle East Eye as he hung up.
His cousin Maram had survived the attack on the al-Ahli Arab Baptist Hospital in October 2023, but had now been killed in her own home during the ceasefire.
“Her body has been here for over two hours now. We’ve been calling ambulances since then, but no ambulances are available,” he said.
Israel has repeatedly targeted ambulances, paramedics and search-and-rescue teams throughout the war, leaving emergency response efforts threadbare.
The family searched for a taxi to transport Maram’s body instead, but none were available.
Since 2 March, Israel has imposed a severe blockade on Gaza, banning the entry of aid, food, medicine, as well as fuel and cooking gas supplies. That means fuel for cars is a rarity, bringing transport services to a grinding halt.
“We couldn’t find any taxis or cars due to the fuel [shortage] and the blockade. I’ll have to carry the body myself and take it to the hospital [for burial], because we can’t wait any longer,” Maram’s cousin said.
Bodies await burial
Scores of bodies have arrived at Gaza City’s al-Shifa hospital. The majority have been identified and have been laid on the floor awaiting burial.
While the exact number of casualties remains unknown, with dozens still missing or trapped under rubble, Gaza’s health ministry has confirmed that at least 420 Palestinians have been killed and 562 others wounded in the ongoing bombardment.
In the hospital yard, Sood Abdulsalam Ahmed al-Sahwish stood gazing at the bodies covered in white and blue plastic shrouds.
“I don’t have any [relatives] among these victims yet. But my son was killed in the beginning of the war, and my nephews were killed in Nuseirat. All of them,” he told MEE.
“We only want a ceasefire. We call on everyone concerned for a ceasefire, we don’t want anything else.”
Following the initial strikes, the Israeli military issued mass expulsion orders to residents in areas across the Gaza Strip, including Beit Hanoun, Khuzaa and Abasan.
As hundreds of families fled the designated areas, Palestinians elsewhere began packing as well, anticipating further orders.
For the first time in nearly two months, the main streets of Gaza City were near empty. Just a few people here or there could be seen stocking up on food to prepare for the worst.
The scenes surrounding Gaza’s few remaining hospitals were starkly different, however. The streets were packed with panicked people and rushing ambulances.
Em Firas Salama, a resident of the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood in northern Gaza City, rushed to a popular market shortly after sunrise, hoping to secure food before supplies ran out.
Carrying a plastic bag containing two bottles of cooking oil, rice and sugar, the mother of five said she could barely afford the essentials.
“The market is almost empty. I couldn’t find even the most basic groceries. And when I did, the prices were unbearably high, we can’t afford them,” she told MEE.
Salama said she usually wakes up about an hour before her husband and children to prepare their suhoor.
“But this time, we all woke up to the sounds of massive bombing in every direction. We didn’t know what was happening, as the situation had seemed fine when we went to sleep. Later, we learned that the Israeli occupation had announced the resumption of the war,” she said.
“Honestly, we had no desire in eating anything at this bloody suhoor after hearing the news that hundreds of people had been killed. It’s a state of war again.”
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