Several thousand Palestinians attended Friday, November 18 the funeral of the twenty-one victims of the fire which ravaged a building in the north of the Gaza Strip the day before, the circumstances of which are still unclear.
Hamas, the Islamist movement in power in the Palestinian enclave under Israeli blockade, said without further details that fuel was stored in the three-storey building, located in the Jabaliya refugee camp. According to Salah Abou Leila, director of the Jabaliya hospital, seven children are among the twenty-one victims of the fire, which the firefighters managed to control in the evening. Fifteen people were injured. Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian Authority, which has no authority in Gaza, declared a day of ” National mourning “.
Wrapped in Palestinian flags, the 21 remains were carried through a packed crowd into the overcrowded Jabaliya camp. The sinister “reminds the world of the human tragedy experienced by Gaza under blockade” and the absence of “means of dealing with fires”lamented Thursday Ismaïl Haniyeh, head of Hamas’ political bureau.
The Israeli administration, which has imposed a strict blockade on the Gaza Strip since the arrival of the Islamist movement at the head of the enclave in 2007, authorized the transfer of the wounded to the Erez crossing point, but we do not know whether exits have taken place. This micro-territory of 365 square kilometers has 2.3 million inhabitants. Electricity blackouts are frequent there, which makes it necessary to resort to more dangerous means for, among other things, lighting or cooking.