"My 16-year-old nephew Ali was killed: a drone-fired rocket tore through him and six members of our extended family while they were sitting outside the last house we had left – the only one that hadn’t yet been reduced to dust.

"Ali was split in two. That’s not a metaphor: it’s literally what the rocket did to his body. A child trying to escape the stifling heat inside a home without electricity, without water, without safety. A child whose only crime was sitting on a plastic chair in a corridor with his uncles – men in their 60s – trying to breathe, trying to live, trying to find a sliver of comfort in a place where even comfort has become a threat.

"Why were they killed? They were not fighters. They had no weapons. They were not hiding. They were not “human shields”. They were not even moving. Just sitting quietly, maybe sipping tea, maybe just sweating and waiting for the night breeze. And then – a drone. A rocket. A flash. A crater. A silence that never ends. There is no “mistake” here. No misfire. The drone did not guess. It hovered. It watched. It picked its target. It aimed. And it hit. Directly."

Playwright, financial and political analyst Ahmed Najar, writing in the Guardian, July 3, 2025.

Gaza Genocide, Day 640. The Israeli-U.S. genocide in Gaza continues to grind up Palestinian human beings of all ages. Just this past week Israel forced tens of thousands of Palestinians to once again flee their homes with nowhere to go. It enforced a murderous blockade and bombed the hospitals Gazans desperately need. Civilians were massacred by the hundreds, and fired on by U.S. mercenaries when they tried to get a few bits of food. Doctors were assassinated and children killed or starved to death. The death toll since October 7, 2023, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry: 57,012, with another 134,592 wounded.

All this with not only the backing, but the direct encouragement and participation of the U.S., especially the fascist Trump/MAGA regime.

Evacuation Orders: Forced Displacement, Indiscriminate Bombing 

This past week Israel issued new evacuation orders for densely populated Gaza City, displacing hundreds of thousands. These orders aim to break the spirt and cohesion of Palestinian society, and to drive the population to smaller and smaller areas in the south. Israel has used them to seize control of over 80 percent of Gaza, turning these areas into no-go zones for Palestinians – and free-fire zones for the Israeli military. 

According to Palestinian writer Muhammad Shehada, 

The evacuation orders are there only as a pretext to allow Israel to carpet bomb, to indiscriminately bomb a whole area nonstop. So, my colleagues on the ground have been saying that since last week, the intensity of the Israeli bombardment is the largest they’ve ever seen in months. There’s basically an airstrike every other minute. There’s nonstop artillery fire, gunfire, machine gunfire, as well as Israeli quadcopter drones that are swarming Gaza and shooting people at random.

Massacring Dozens at a Seaside Café

Gaza City’s Baqaa Café and Restaurant is on the beach overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. It’s an airy spot, and one of the very few places Gazans can go to cool off, relax, have a coffee or bite to eat, chat with friends, and get internet access. On June 30, this small oasis of Palestinian life was turned into a hellscape of devastation and slaughter when Israel hit it with a 500-pound, U.S.-made bomb.

Children celebrating a birthday were killed. So were prominent visual artist Frans al-Salmi and photojournalist Ismail Abu Hatab. “Witnesses described seeing a dead four-year-old child, an elderly man with both legs severed and many others with severe injuries. Photographs showed pools of blood and flesh amid shattered concrete columns and roofing,” the Guardian reported.

That day more than 100 Palestinians were killed across Gaza, including at least 39 at the Café, where another 50 were wounded.¹

Targeted Assassination of Cardiologist Marwan al-Sultan, director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital

Israel’s escalating attacks killed more than 300 Palestinians—overwhelmingly if not all civilians—in a 48-hour period between July 1 and 3. The dead included 11 killed in an airstrike on a school where displaced Palestinians sought refuge, and 13 killed at a tent encampment near Khan Younis, including a couple and their four children.²

Another was Dr. Marwan al-Sultan, a renowned cardiologist and director of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital. He was killed by a missile strike into the apartment block in Gaza City where he and his extended family were staying after being displaced from northern Gaza. His wife, daughter, sister and son-in-law were also killed in the attack, the Guardian reports.

Dr. al-Sultan’s “surviving daughter Lobna said the airstrike specifically targeted the room her father was in. ‘All the rooms were fine except for his, the missile hit it precisely,’’ the Guardian writes. “His son Ahmed said there was ‘no other explanation’ other than that his father was deliberately targeted by the Israeli military. He also added that the floors where his father and their extended family were staying were the only parts of the block hit in the airstrike.”

His murder was not a “one off.” Dr. al-Sultan was one of only two remaining heart specialists in Gaza, and he was someone who was regularly interviewed by the international media, warning of the collapse of Gaza’s healthcare system due to Israeli actions. Now he becomes the 70th healthcare worker Israel has killed there in the last 50 days. According to the UN, more than 1,400 healthcare workers have been killed in Gaza since October 2023.

In other words, Dr. al-Sultan was very likely a civilian victim of a targeted execution by Israel, as part of its campaign to systematically destroy Gaza’s medical infrastructure and executing those who expose its crimes—key elements of a genocide. (Since October 2023, Israel has killed at least 227 Palestinian journalists and banned all international media from Gaza.)