Israel Expands Ethnic Cleansing Operations in Khan Younis by Donya Abu Sitta

The buzzing of the drones overhead was deafening, but the sound of people’s screams and wails were even louder. Everyone in the street was scattering hysterically, running for their lives. We live on a block with apartment complexes around a central courtyard, and I saw my neighbors standing by the windows trying to comprehend what was happening. Thick black smoke filled the air. Even though we had endured nearly 600 days of this war of extermination, I didn’t believe we would survive this day. It was a living nightmare.

It eventually became clear what had happened. News reports and eyewitness accounts described how an Israeli special forces unit had infiltrated Khan Younis to raid the home of Ahmed Sarhan, a commander in the Al-Nasser Salah al-Din Brigades, the military wing of the Popular Resistance Committees. The soldiers posed as displaced people—some disguised as women in civilian clothing—pulling a cart with mattresses piled high, but inside was a crate storing the weapons they would use for their operation. They stormed Sarhan’s home, but he reportedly resisted and fought back. According to witnesses, they killed him in front of his family and kidnapped his wife and children and shot dead another child in the street on their way out.