Zeitoun incident
2009 CE.
Shown on the map at 31.496°, 34.456°.
The Zeitoun killings refer to the Israeli military incursion, led by the Givati Brigade unit of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), into the Zeitoun district of Gaza as part of the three-week 2008–09 Gaza War. In the Arab world, it is referred to as the Zeitoun District Massacre (Arabic: مجزرة حي الزيتون). A total of 48 residents of Zeitoun were killed, most of them women, children, and the elderly; 27 homes, a mosque and a number of farms were destroyed by Israeli forces. The New York Times reported that during the three-week conflict "few neighborhoods suffered more than Zeitoun." A report released by United Nations Office for Humanitarian Affairs stated that the attack on the Samouni family, who were among the Zeitoun victims, was one of the "gravest incidents" in the conflict. According to Haaretz, the IDF delayed rescue services from reaching some of the casualties for three days of the incident. Zeitoun residents believed that because the area is a natural choke point where the Gaza Strip narrows to just four miles wide, Israeli troops turned their neighborhoods into a military base from which to launch their operations.
Text from the Wikipedia article Zeitoun killings, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.