"Crazy and Unprecedented"

Haneen Harara, a Palestinian journalist based in Gaza, says it is really hard to tell the world how bad the situation is

- Haneen Harara

GAZA is a small city with simple people who want to live. We have dreams. We have whole lives to live. We have mothers who love their children; just like other mothers in the rest of the world. We have dreams to achieve. It is hard for me to express this. I am sorry.

On October 7, we woke up to the sounds of rockets launched by Palestinian fighters in the Hamas-run Gaza Strip in response to the ongoing escalations against Palestinian people in Jerusalem and the West Bank. It was crazy and unprecedented. After an hour, Israeli airstrikes began. They bombed several areas in the Gaza Strip, and targeted civilians, innocent people, mosques, churches, streets, restaurants, and every single place in Gaza. They even attacked schools, supposed to be safe shelters for people who are displaced from their homes.

The Israel Defence Forces announced that people have to evacuate from their homes in the north, east and west rings of the Gaza Strip to schools in the south. But they targeted these very schools.