After more than a decade and three cycles of infertility treatments, Rania Abu Anza finally became a mother to a set of twins—a boy and a girl. Tragically, an Israeli assault on the southern Gaza city of Rafah killed both of them and at least fourteen other members of the Abu Anza family on Saturday. They were just six months old.
The situation in the Gaza Strip was sharply denounced on Sunday by the Biden administration after almost five months of a battle that has killed roughly 30,000 people. The vice president, Kamala Harris, called it a humanitarian catastrophe and demanded an “immediate cease-fire.”
There should be no place for excuses, Harris said, and the Israeli government should do more to provide supplies to Gaza to relieve the suffering.
Israeli forces attacked the city of Rafah in southern Gaza, killing at least 14 members of the Abu Anza family, including the infants, who were just six months old, on Saturday.
As she cradled the corpses of her children, the distraught mother questioned their actions.
On Sunday, the Biden administration harshly condemned the situation in the Gaza Strip after almost five months of fighting that had killed about 30,000 people.
In Gaza, food is in short supply. As part of commemorating the anniversary of “Bloody Sunday” in Selma, Alabama, Harris voiced her alarm about the difficult circumstances and stressed the need to take action. Nearly sixty years ago, at this exact moment, civil rights demonstrators and state police clashed violently on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Harris demanded that the Israeli government assist in Gaza to relieve the suffering.
She also stressed how critical it is to eradicate the danger that Hamas poses to Israeli citizens.
Saturday saw the first food assistance airdrops into Gaza by the United States, just before a Hamas team departed for Cairo to continue ceasefire talks. According to a US official, Israel approved the basis of the ceasefire agreement. Nevertheless, Israeli media reported that the government opted not to participate in Sunday’s discussions due to Hamas’s refusal to release a complete list of the living captives.
A top Hamas official has said that the organization has not been able to compile a complete list of the captives who have survived.
All around Israel, people are demanding that the captives be released and that the fighting stop.
On Saturday, there was a march in Jerusalem attended by friends and family of those held in Gaza prisons and their supporters. Urging Prime Minister Netanyahu to reach a swift truce with Hamas, they made their voices heard.
