In just over four days, 288 Palestinians, mostly children, women, and the elderly, have been killed in a wave of Israeli airstrikes that has shattered any remaining illusion of safety in Gaza. According to official sources within the besieged enclave, 59 massacres were committed in 100 hours, marking one of the deadliest phases of this ongoing war.

Among the dead were dozens killed while seeking humanitarian aid, an act that should symbolise hope but has turned into a death sentence. Overcrowded food lines and makeshift shelters have become targets, struck without warning in what many Palestinians now call “zones of deception.” Entire families were torn apart in Al-Mawasi, an area Israel designated as a so-called “safe zone.”

Markets, health clinics, displacement camps and residential blocks have not been spared. Witnesses describe scenes of unbearable carnage: bloodied bread scattered beside bombed aid trucks, the cries of children echoing through clouds of dust, and medical staff overwhelmed, tending to the wounded on bare concrete floors.

Palestinians on the ground speak of a deliberate pattern, a cruelty calibrated to break their spirit and erase their existence. They accuse Israel of intentionally targeting the vulnerable, weaponising hunger and fear to tighten its grip. As Gaza’s hospitals collapse under the weight of the wounded and morgues run out of space, the international community offers little more than hollow condolences.

The assault has entered its 641st day. For many in Gaza, this is no longer war, it is annihilation, made possible by Western complicity and deafening Arab silence. And still, the people endure, not because they are safe, but because they refuse to disappear.