It was hailed as a huge success in Israel. A bloody and violent ambush that turned into a massacre of almost 300 displaced people who were going about their day as best they could.
Suddenly, they found themselves “descending into the depths of hell,” wrote Al Jazeera’s Maram Humaid on June 8.
An Israeli attack on the Nuseirat refugee camp, ostensibly to free four Israeli prisoners held there, but which reportedly resulted in the deaths of three more, including an American citizen, according to the Qassam Brigades.
This is in addition to the at least 274 Palestinians killed.
What happened in Nuseirat? How did Israel kill so many people? Here is a summary of the attack:
What happened?
The attack on Nuseirat was ostensibly aimed at freeing four prisoners captured on October 7: Noa Argamani, 25, Almog Meir Jan, 21, Andrey Kozlov, 27, and Shlomi Ziv, 40.
It all started around 11am, with what witnesses say were several trucks and civilian cars entering a neighborhood near the countryside market.
One was loaded with furniture to look like it was transporting displaced people, while another had commercial markings on the exterior. There were what appeared to be civilian vehicles in the group as well.
To provide air cover, Israeli forces began shelling from above, hitting the busy market area the hardest, likely spreading as much panic and distress as possible, as well as inflicting maximum casualties.
Telegram channels began circulating news that shelling could be heard in the camp at around 11:35 am.
At one point, the convoy separated into two groups of vehicles. Later, the investigation revealed that each group went to a place where Israelite captives were being held.
The three male prisoners were at one location, where Al Jazeera believes a witness account details how the soldiers arrived at the house.
There, heavily armed soldiers jumped out of vehicles and ran through a cluster of makeshift tents set up by displaced people.
The witness describes how everyone cowered in fear inside their flimsy shelters, little more than a piece of fabric between them and the armed soldiers.
At the end of the run, they came to a garden wall, through which they cut a hole to approach a silent building from the back.
Al Jazeera was unable to determine whether this was the only access point to this building, which is surrounded by a garden on at least two sides and probably faces a road.
Noa Argamani was detained in another location, in a building facing a narrow, tree-lined street.
There, a truck stopped, supported by soldiers who were shooting on sight, killing a person at the entrance to the building. From the images that Al Jazeera analyzed, there were no weapons near or on the dead individual.
A ladder was extended from the truck to allow soldiers to enter an apartment through the balcony.
All the reports that Al Jazeera gathered indicate that Israeli soldiers were shooting at people they saw in the buildings they entered, as well as in the streets where the soldiers walked.
To support the ground operation, the Israeli army reportedly moved armored vehicles across the Salah al-Din road, on the line between the Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps.
At one point during the attack, more Israeli soldiers landed in a helicopter on the coast of Gaza, not far from the US-built pier.
Analysis would indicate that they should provide support, if necessary, and evacuate captives.
After the recovery of the four individuals, the convoy of trucks and disguised civilian vehicles left the camp towards the sea, taking the Nuseirat road.
From there, the four were loaded into the Israeli military helicopter and took off, leaving the carnage behind as the perplexed population of Nuseirat tried to understand what had happened.
What did the people in Nuseirat do when this horror was over?
The injured were taken to Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Balah, quickly overwhelming medical and morgue facilities.
A video widely shared on social media shows the few remaining doctors at the hospital standing amid countless people lying on the floor, in agony, bleeding and screaming.
The doctor in the middle of the scene is devastated. He can no longer move because there are so many patients lying on every square inch of the tile floor that there is no place for him to put his feet.
It is unclear how he continued that day, how he triaged the wounds and how he made the decision on who to allocate the almost non-existent hospital resources to.
*الإصابات تفترش ممرات مستشفى شهداء الأقصى بعر جيش الاحتلال الإسرائيلي ي مخيم النصيرات في ظل تدميره للقطاع الض ي كل مناطق قطاع غزة* pic.twitter.com/HyFRmlfux2
-Tariq Jaber (@TariqJaber14041) June 8, 2024
Translation: In light of what the Israeli occupation army did to decimate Gaza’s healthcare sector, injured people line the corridors of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital following the massacre the Israeli occupation army committed in the Nusierat refugee camp .
Within an hour, as staff frantically tried to treat the overwhelming number of injured, the hospital received an evacuation order from the Israeli military. The hospital was in an area previously designated by the Israeli military as a safe zone.
But the operation, considered by the Israelis and their international allies as a resounding success, not only killed numerous Palestinians, but also some hostages.
The Qassam Brigades posted a video on its Telegram channel on Sunday that showed three unidentified corpses, with their faces covered, claiming they belonged to three prisoners, including an American citizen, who Israel killed during its attack.
Wait… Israeli soldiers sneaked in how?
Israeli forces were “perfidiously hidden in an aid truck”, said UN Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese. “This is ‘humanitarian camouflage’ on another level,” she wrote in X. Israel denied the accusation.
How many people were killed or injured?
At least 274 people died in Saturday’s massacre, including at least 64 children, and more than 700 were injured, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.
Among those Israel killed, according to Hamas’ armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, are three Israeli prisoners, one of whom has US citizenship.
Israeli army spokesman Daniel Hagari said on Saturday that “dozens” of Palestinians were killed in the attack, telling a briefing that he “knew of fewer than 100” victims but “couldn’t say” how many were civilians.
How were so many people killed to rescue only four?
Witnesses describe a violent ambush, with gunfire and indiscriminate airstrikes.
Camp resident Anas Alayyan said Israeli soldiers carried out mass executions in the streets.
“I went down to the street and found bodies everywhere,” he told Al Jazeera.
This story originally appeared on Aljazeera.com read the full story
