Hamas Reportedly Shooting Gaza Civilians Trying to Flee War Zone

October 28, 2024

by: Kate Norman

Wednesday, 23 October 2024 | Hamas is shooting civilians who are trying to flee a war zone in northern Gaza, an Israeli paramedic told Israeli media Monday.

Gazan civilians were attempting to evacuate the Jabaliya area in northern Gaza after the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) issued warnings for them to leave ahead of incoming fighting in the region.

However, Cpl. Shai Gilboa, an IDF paramedic, told Israel’s Channel 12 news Monday that their battalion “went into action to exert as much military pressure as possible on Hamas terrorists, who held the civilian population in the area and forbade them from evacuating to a safe area.”

While trying to flee, however, Gilboa said Hamas terrorists began firing at the civilians in an attempt to prevent them from evacuating the area.

“The wounded came to us and we provided them with first aid in the field, which mostly entailed stopping the bleeding,” Gilboa added. She was photographed by Channel 12 treating a Gazan woman with wounds to her face.

The corporal noted that the Gazan civilians and most of the IDF troops have limited contact because of the language barrier, “but they smile at us, they wave goodbye at us, they curse Hamas in front of us.”

“Not only are they not afraid of us,” Gilboa continued, “a lot of them are on our side.”

The IDF began operating in Jabaliya earlier this month in order to thwart a build-up of Hamas operatives in the area. Following its usual pattern, the Israeli military issued evacuation warnings and instructions to civilians ahead of the fighting to prevent civilian casualties.

Last week, however, the IDF published a recording of a conversation between an IDF operative and a Gazan man from the Jabaliya neighborhood who said Hamas was preventing people from evacuating.

“The problem is that when we follow the army’s instructions and try to go to Al-Mawasi [humanitarian zone], there are people who come out against us and start hitting us with sticks, telling us ‘Go back, go back,” the Gazan man said in the recording.

“What should we do?” the man continued. “We want to leave. We took our belongings and wanted to leave, and now they’re hitting us and telling us to ‘go home, go home,’ what should we do?”

Former IDF Spokesperson Eylon Levy posted the recording on X, formerly Twitter, and wrote: “Israel is trying to evacuate Palestinian civilians to safety. Hamas is stopping them.”

Earlier this month, Gaza’s interior ministry, run by Hamas, called on civilians to ignore the IDF warnings to evacuate, alleging that “the occupation is conducting continued bombing and killing every day in the areas it claims to be safe,” the Times of Israel reported.

Israel has proven time and again that it cares more for the lives of Gaza’s civilians than Hamas does. Israel goes out of its way to warn civilians of incoming strikes and issue evacuation warnings and instructions ahead of fighting in a particular area. The IDF has also published several videos in the past of calling off incoming strikes to a terror target because of a civilian in the area.

Hamas, on the other hand, puts its own people in harm’s way, using them as human shields, knowing that the IDF values human life and will pause at striking a target knowing there are innocents in the vicinity. Hamas builds terror tunnels under people’s homes. They store weapons, establish bases of operation and launch rockets from civilian areas, including hospitals, mosques, schools and homes.

And now, according to Cpl. Gilboa, they are shooting their own people to prevent them from fleeing to safety. Why? Once again, to use them as human shields, knowing it will slow the IDF down in their attempt to avoid spilling civilian blood.

Posted on October 28, 2024

Source: (Bridges for Peace, October 23, 2024)

Photo Credit: Al Jazeera English/Flickr.com

Photo License: Flickr