Yehya Qasem was having dinner with his family one evening in early October when the unmistakable sound of Israeli airstrikes pierced the air. The series of so-called firebelts were so deafening that his mom and siblings froze in fear, forsaking their meal of canned chickpeas.
Qasem peered out the window to see what was going on. His family worried that Israeli troops would enter their town of Jabalia that night. Trying to calm them down, he countered, “There’s nothing left for them to enter.”
Since Israel had launched its assault on Gaza a year earlier, the army had twice invaded Jabalia. “What’s left for them to destroy?” he recounted in a recent interview, an Israeli quadcopter’s strikes audible in the background. ….more
