![A view of the area in the city of Khan Yunis, Gaza where some buildings collapsed or heavily damaged in Israeli airstrikes on October 26, 2023. [Mustafa Hassona - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/AA-20231026-32524535-32524516-ISRAELI_AIRSTRIKES_ON_GAZA_CONTINUE.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
The poet Ahmed Abu Artema, whose social media post inspired the Great March of Return in 2018, has been targeted in an Israeli air strike that shelled his home in Tel Al-Sultan, Rafah, Gaza, killing four members of his family.
Ahmed was also seriously injured in the attack on 24 October, suffering second degree burns. He is now in a stable condition. Ahmed’s young son, Abdullah, two of his brothers and mother-in-law were killed.
His home was one of many targeted in recent days despite being in the southern region of the Gaza Strip, where people from the north were ordered to go by the Israeli occupation army. There is no safe place in Gaza.
Commenting on the targeting of Ahmed’s family, Neta Golan, a co-founder of ISM and Return Solidarity, said: “In the weeks leading up to the attack, Ahmed had used his voice to call for global protests to stop Israel’s genocide and criminal bombing campaign of the Gaza Strip. “
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“It was Ahmed’s words in 2018 that inspired thousands of Gazans to march unarmed towards the fence besieging the Gaza ghetto, to demand their right to return to the lands from which they’d been expelled. The Israeli occupation forces killed Ahmed’s family because Israel feared the power of his words.”
On top of cutting off electricity to the Strip, voices of dissent are being extinguished by Israel’s brutal bombing campaign. Since 7 October, Israeli air strikes have killed at least 24 Palestinian journalists. Family members of prominent journalists have also been targeted. On 25 October, an Israeli air strike killed the wife, son and daughter of Al Jazeera correspondent Wael Al-Dahdouh.
Since 7 October, Israel has massacred 7,028 Palestinians, including 2,913 children, in Gaza.
ISM reported that in an audio recording sent to them days before the attack on his family home, Ahmed said: ‘This did not start on October 7. Unfortunately, the world has been blind to the suffering of the Palestinians for decades. Only when Israel lost people, did the outside world pay attention here. What’s happening now in Gaza is exactly the same thing Israel started in 1948. The Israeli government is not targeting Hamas. As all of us can see on the TV and internet, the vast majority of the targets in Gaza are civilians, neighbourhoods, hospitals, churches and mosques.”