Nadene Goldfoot
Al-Mawasi is a fertile area for agriculture in the Gaza Strip. It is along the coast and has many sand dunes and sits on the dividing line of Gaza and Egypt and the sea. Al-Mawasi is fourteen kilometers long (8.6992-8.7 miles) and one kilometer(0.62 mile) wide, making up about 3% of the Gaza Strip. Al-Mawasi is known as the "Basket of Food" because of its fertile soil, underground water, and agricultural conditions. Prior to the Gaza war, al-Mawasi had a population of 9,000 (questionable). It has a number of buildings with a maximum of 100 structures.
For contrast, Florence, Oregon has 9,400 population. Florence, Oregon, has a total area of 6.07 square miles, with 5.4 square miles of land and 0.67 square miles of water. Specifically, the land area is 5.42 square miles.
Al-Birawi was a Palestinian who worked for Kibbutz members. “They treated us like family there,” says Nabil, al-Birawi’s 54-year-old brother, of Hashim’s employers.
On the nightmarish morning of Oct. 7, al-Birawi started his day in the Bedouin city of Rahat, in the Naqab/Negev, where he would often stay overnight instead of returning home to Gaza when he was working at a kibbutz. Just before 7 a.m. the gray van that al-Birawi and six other Gazan workers were in, together with the driver, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, came under fire as it approached the Sa’ad intersection, 2.5 miles from the Gaza fence. Twenty minutes later, al-Birawi was dead.
In that final conversation, Golan says al-Birawi told him that “a terrorist who parachuted in from the sky” had shot him. In security camera footage taken at the Sha’ar HaNegev intersection, four Palestinian gunmen can be seen next to and peering into the shot-up gray van.
Other reports I've heard were that Arabs who worked for Kibbutz members were among those attacking them.
Agence France-Presse (AFP), which cross-referenced numerous data sources to verify the number of people killed, has assessed that 815 of a total of 1,195 people killed were civilians, including 79 foreign nationals. Among them were at least 282 women and 36 children. The Palestinian armed groups took hostage 251 civilians and Israeli security forces personnel and brought them back to Gaza following the attack. Those abducted either remain as hostages in Gaza, have been released, or have been killed or died in the ensuing fighting. These are included in the overall death toll.
Israel continues to fight for its survival, battling a seven front war against the Iranian regime and its terror proxies Hezbollah, Houthis, and Hamas, and more.
After the October 7th, 2023 attack of Hamas on Israeli kibbutzim, it was by December 2023, during the Gaza war, the Israel Defense Forces had designated Al-Mawasi as one of the only safe areas in the Gaza Strip for Palestinian civilians to be, as the attack meant that Hamas declared War and was out to kill all Jews; all Israelis. By late-August 2024, the United Nations estimated there were between 30,000 and 34,000 people per square kilometre in Al-Mawasi. Food and water grew scarce as the area became increasingly overcrowded.
There are many kibbutz communities that border Gaza, and many of them were attacked on October 7 by Hamas. But one with among the highest death tolls and perhaps the greatest destruction was Nir Oz. Now, as some of its members were released just this past weekend after nearly 18 months in captivity, the community there is facing an existential question, how to rebuild and how to be reborn.
Despite ongoing operations in Rafah, the IDF acknowledges that its focus is shifting northward to what officials describe as the most formidable challenge yet: the densely populated humanitarian zones in Al-Mawasi, along the coast between Rafah and Khan Yuni. The IDF has not yet entered the area, which is believed to harbor thousands of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists and their commanders. IDF commanders stressed that extensive precautions are being taken to reduce the risk to hostages believed to be held captive in tunnels. Most of the Hamas terrorists from the Rafah brigade are believed to have fled to northern Gaza.
Day 566 (one year and 201 days) of the War with Gazan Hamas terrorists occurred in Jabaliya in northern Gaza. To reduce harming Palestinian civilians, IDF used precision weapons, aerial strikes, and intelligence information. Fierce fighting has been reported in Jabalia in northern Gaza, after the Israeli military went back into areas where it said Hamas had regrouped. Residents who fled said they had seen tanks advancing towards Jabalia's refugee camp, which has come under heavy bombardment since Saturday. Palestinian armed groups also said they were battling troops in the camp. Meanwhile, the UN has said 360,000 people have fled Rafah, in the south, since an offensive began a week ago. The Israeli military has ordered the evacuation of the eastern third of the city, which is swollen with more than a million Palestinians taking refuge.
Resource:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/nir-oz-begins-long-process-of-rebuilding-from-oct-7-attacks
https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2024/gaza-before-after-satellite-images/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/kibbutz-nir-oz-families-document-themselves-before-and-after-oct-7/
https://www.972mag.com/gaza-workers-israel-kibbutzim-massacres/
