#gaza

#gaza

Two years ago this month, the world was gripped by a series of shocking recordings of a 6-year-old girl in Gaza pleading for help as she sat trapped in a car riddled with bullets alongside the bodies of her cousins, aunt and uncle, who had just been killed by Israeli forces as the family attempted to flee the Israeli ground invasion of Gaza City.

Living with cancer for six years, Naim had been approved for treatment abroad. But like thousands of others, he remains trapped in Gaza, barred from leaving by tightening Israeli restrictions. I used to receive treatment in the West Bank and Jerusalem, Naim told Al Jazeera's Tareq Abu Azzoum. Today, I cannot access any treatment at all. I need radiotherapy, and it no longer exists in Gaza.

Gaza's unemployment rate has reached 80 percent, among the highest in the world, according to the United Nations. After more than two years of Israel's genocidal war on Gaza, the daily unbearable churn of mass death and mourning, with homes, hospitals and schools destroyed, the besieged Palestinian territory also faces the fastest and most damaging economic collapse on record. That is according to the United Nations, which says Gaza's unemployment rate has reached 80 percent.

She said they were in a tent in Khan Yunis, in what was meant to be a safe area, when their tent was hit by a missile. She said they were all injured, but her husband and her youngest son were the most severely hurt. She ripped her shirt to wrap around her husband's leg when her son Mohammed called to her.

Israel's genocidal war has destroyed families and livelihoods across Gaza, leaving more than 39,000 children orphaned, while the widespread destruction has deprived over 80 percent of the workforce of their sources of income. Amid deepening poverty and the absence of alternatives, an increasing number of children have been forced into the streets, resorting to begging as their only means of survival.

At this time every year, I would usually be busy performing at Christmas and New Year's celebrations held by Gaza's hotels and restaurants before the war, Abdullah told Al Jazeera with a sad smile. In September, as an Israeli military ground operation began in northern Gaza, Abdullah was displaced from Beit Lahiya in the north to an apartment belonging to relatives in central Gaza City.

We won't remain silent, we won't forget Palestine.

Another year has passed, and life in Gaza is still trapped between Israel's killing machine and the growing indifference of the world. It is another year added to our unique calendar of loss, destruction and death. In March, I wrote about my fears that Israel might go even further in its genocidal drive than what it had already done. And it did.

Nobody relaxes too much in the fleeting moments of near-normalcy because they know these can disappear at any time. Over the past year, Gaza's infrastructure has been subjected to a devastating reality. What once functioned under strain has been pushed beyond the point of collapse. Electricity networks, water systems, hospitals, roads and municipal services have been systematically destroyed or severely damaged, leaving daily life defined by survival.

Palestinian death toll since the start of the truce in Gaza rises to 411 amid near daily Israeli violations. Israeli forces have fatally shot a Palestinian man east of Gaza City as they continue their ceasefire violations and carry out sweeping raids across the occupied West Bank. The Palestinian news service Wafa reported on Friday that Israeli forces opened fire on Uday al-Maqadma while he was sitting near the entrance of a school in Gaza.

Many of the remaining churches across Gaza either scaled back or cancelled Christmas activities altogether. Gaza's Christian community has marked a subdued Christmas as the sound of Israeli bombardment and hum of drones from the east of the enclave carried through the night and into the early hours of this morning, according to Al Jazeera's team on the ground in Gaza City.

Mustafa and Nesma al-Borsh's wedding party was, understandably, a modest affair, considering the conditions in the Gaza Strip. Nesma went to a beauty salon, rented a white dress, and took some photos with her groom, Mustafa. The ceremony and party were held in a tent in eastern Gaza City's neighbourhood of Tuffah, with only 40 people in attendance. I won't say it was the wedding day I had always dreamed of,

The Halawa family's building still stands two storeys above the rubble in Gaza City, a rare survivor after two years of nonstop Israeli air attacks that levelled buildings across the besieged Palestinian enclave. One section has collapsed, with bent metal rods protruding from where a roof once existed. The family built a narrow set of creaking wooden steps to access their home, though these makeshift stairs threaten to give way at any moment. Yet amid the destruction, it remains home.

Unfortunately, antisemitism has been around for a long time, but its flames have been fanned recently by the wanton slaughter of thousands of innocent women and children in Gaza. As for accountability, look to Benjamin Netanyahu, who has equated Zionism with Judaism, and to our Congress, which has unanimously and repeatedly appropriated our tax dollars to fund this massacre. Mayor Martinez is calling attention to a genocide. He should be applauded, not censored.

Nisrin Antone's Christmas wish is to celebrate Christmas Eve again with her husband and three daughters, around a table in a real home. Since October 2023, this 45-year-old Palestinian Christian has been confined with her family to a small office in the Holy Family parish church, in the heart of Gaza City. Along with them are some 400 other people, all with very similar stories and longings, as well as three priests, five nuns, and about 50 people with disabilities whom they care for.

Against all odds, Gaza's youths continue to adapt. They work offline, code in notebooks, store solar power whenever the sun is out, and wait for rare moments of connectivity to send their work to clients around the world. In a war that has taken nearly everything, digital skills have become a form of survival and resilience. Many now also rely on online work to make a living.

As I stood by the side of the road, I felt a small hand tugging at my clothes. I looked down and saw a little girl, no older than eight. She was barefoot, her shirt was torn, and her hair was messy and unwashed. Her eyes were beautiful, and her face showed innocence, yet exhaustion and despair clouded it. She pleaded: Please, please, give me just one shekel, God bless you.