Video Producer: Mayank Chawla
Video Editor: Prashant Chauhan
In the heaviest aerial exchange since 2014, the death toll in Gaza soared to 83, including 17 children as on 13 May, Al Jazeera reported. Israel has now intensified the air raids. More than 480 have been injured in the violence.
The present confrontation started on 7 May when Israeli forces stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque in East Jerusalem. Scores of Palestinians had gathered there as the day marked the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan.
As Israeli forces cracked down on the Palestinians, the confrontation grew and led to aerial exchange between Hamas and Israel beginning 10 May.
Underlying the crackdown, was a hearing due on Sunday, 9 May. The hearing was to decide whether several Palestinians would be evicted and their homes be given to Israeli settlers in Sheikh Jarrah, a neighbourhood near Damascus Gate.
However, the ruling was deferred as it could have inflamed the situation further. Since then, scenes of Israeli aggression have surfaced on the internet in the form of pictures and video clips as the city remains one of the most-contested places on Earth.
One of the most-circulated video clips shows a Palestinian boy running after his father’s body being taken for last rites. The man was killed in an Israeli raid in Gaza. Another shows a Palestinian crying over the corpse of his child. The video is captioned ‘Palestinian man gives a final goodbye’.
“Do you want your kids to grow up defending the oppressors? Is this what you wanted to be when you were young?” asks a Palestinian woman arrested by an Israeli soldier in another video clip.
It has been five days since the aerial exchange between Hamas and Israel started and the internet is flooded with videos of destruction, despair, distress and displacement.
Amid the ongoing confrontation, Eid al-Fitr was observed on 13 May, marking the end of the holy month of Ramadan. The Palestinian flag was raised at the Al-Aqsa mosque compound as people flocked to greet each other and prayed for peace.
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