MONROE — A former foreign exchange student at Monroe High School is trying to find shelter while her home — and homeland — are rattled by bombs in Palestine.

Anastasia Yacoub spent the 2022-23 school year as a sophomore at Monroe High School but had to return to her homeland in June. The thing is, her home had been destroyed just a month earlier when the Israeli Defense Federation (IDF) sent missiles screaming into her Gaza City neighborhood aiming for Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) militants.

Her family escaped with their lives but uncertainty remained. Four months later, the conflict between Israel and Hamas, labeled a terrorist organization by the United States in 1995 and the European Union in 2003, rekindled in its bloodiest scene in years. 

A surprise Hamas attack killed thousands of Israelis, which in turn bombarded the narrow Gaza Strip with thousands of rockets, turning entire neighborhoods of Gaza City into rubble. As of Oct. 12, more than 2,600 civilians combined had been killed between Palestine and Israel. Anastasia and her family are among those that have survived thus far, though they can only take it day by day. 

“The past three days have been worse than a nightmare,” Anastasia said on Monday, Oct. 9. “With rockets flying around and hitting us, killing numerous families, nobody can sleep. There is nowhere in Gaza that is safe to flee since they are destroying everything here. The internet will soon be switched off, cutting us off from the rest of the world. It’s very scary and unlike any previous war that has taken place here.”

Feuding lands

The Israel-Palestine conflict has been a battleground for millennia, as multiple religions claim the “Holy Land” as their own. Palestine has been a civilization for thousands of years. It is the birthplace of both Judaism and Christianity, and has been controlled by major kingdoms and empires throughout the centuries — from Ancient Egypt, Ancient Israel and Judah, the Persian Empire, Alexander the Great, the Roman Empire, several Muslim Caliphates, Christian Crusades and the Ottoman Empire, then to the United Kingdom between World War I and World War II.

When the British ended its colonial rule in 1948, both Islamic Palestinians and Jewish Israelis wanted to control the region. The clashes have been regular since. Eventually in 1967, Israel succeeded and took over rule, displacing about 700,000 Palestinians in the process. 

In 1968, Anastasia’s grandparents had to emigrate away from their home “when the Israelis came,” she said.

The two sides haven’t stopped feuding since. Palestine currently has control of the Gaza Strip along the Mediterranean Sea, which includes Gaza City, and the interior West Bank. The Gaza Strip is surrounded by a wall on three sides and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Hamas took control of the Gaza Strip in 2007 through elections and the Battle of Gaza, where they ousted one of two Palestinian rivals, Fatah. Hamas’ other rival is the PIJ.

“We know Hamas doesn’t represent the Palestinian people,” said U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at a press conference in Tel Aviv Thursday, adding that the militant group rules repressively.

Today, 138 of the 193 countries in the United Nations recognizes Palestine as its own country, though not the United States.

According to the U.S. Embassy’s website, Israel and the United States are bound closely by historic and cultural ties as well as by mutual interests. The U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship is strong, anchored by over $3 billion in Foreign Military Financing annually.

Given the instability in the region, U.S. relations with Israel are a very important factor in its Middle East foreign policy. Islamic nations of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iran are all within tight quarters of each other.

The entire region is unstable, with a lot of tension based off of religious rivalries and beliefs. Many of the nations are led by autocrats or kingdoms, and militant Islamic groups have posed a risk to any peace. Israel is a Jewish nation.

According to The Guardian, after the newest round of chaos, there are fears among governments that violence could descend into a larger war, involving Israel’s neighbors, Syria and Lebanon.

All commercial air traffic to Palestine and Israel is closed, though some evacuation flights are taking place. Nearby airports in the Syrian cities of Damascus and Aleppo are closed, however, after those airports faced their own air attacks on Thursday. Syrian state media blamed Israel, though there are no confirmations of who was behind the strikes.

Israel has hit targets in both Egypt (at the Gaza border crossing), and Lebanon, escalating the tension throughout the region. The strikes at the Egyptian crossing came after Israeli officials suggested Palestinians evacuate to Egypt, despite Egypt suggesting otherwise given the potential huge flow of refugees in a very small corridor. 

Around the world and in Europe, antisemitism grew in the days following Hamas’ attack. German chancellor Olaf Scholz pledged a “zero tolerance” approach. France arrested 24 people after more than 100 incidents in its country this week. 

In Portugal, the Kadoorie Mekor Haim synagogue in Porto was vandalized on Wednesday. Graffiti including the slogans “Free Palestine” and “End Israel Apartheid”. A Spanish synagogue was also defaced this week, with the words “Free Palestine” written on the walls.

Reports out of Great Britain show a 324% increase in antisemitic incidents since the weekend compared to the same time last year, according to the Community Security Trust, a body that provides security and advice to Jewish communities. Jewish schools and childcare facilities in Great Britain closed mid-week due to further threats of violence.

A nightmare from across the world

Back in May of this year, Anastasia was finishing up her 10-month long foreign exchange experience at MHS. She had spent the school year immersing herself in the local culture and activities offered, including volleyball, basketball and soccer.

On May 8, her world was rocked. She received a phone call from her best friend back in Gaza City, Palestine: Her home had been hit during an air raid by the Israeli Defense Federation (IDF). Her family was uninjured, though traumatized from the experience, including her 5-year-old brother. However, three neighbors in the apartment above her home were killed.

The raid was a response by the IDF after PIJ militants launched 100 rockets into Israel in retaliation for a PIJ member who died of a hunger strike while in prison.

More than 1,000 rockets passed between the two nations over the next few days, before a seize fire was called.

Alexander Yacoub, Anastasia’s brother, called her since and told her he wants to move to the U.S. 

“He was telling me he wants to go to America where there is no bombings,” she said. “That’s a 5-year-old. He’s traumatized. This is what every child goes through in Gaza and Palestine, and that is not normal. That is terrible that they are traumatized like this.”

Just weeks later, Anastasia’s time in America was up, and she returned to her homeland, albeit without the home she had left behind.

“The program, they have to send me back. But I told them, ‘if you send me back, I don’t know where to go,’” she said in late May, with just two weeks remaining.

A GoFundMe was created by Monroe students and teachers to raise money for Anastasia and her family, either to rebuild, relocate, or whatever the family would decide.

Back in Palestine, the nightmare is even more real

Once back in Palestine, Anastasia and her family  were taken in by a family friend.

“After that terrible, short conflict, it made me very happy to see all of my friends and family again,” she said on Monday. “We started building our home while continuing on with daily activities. I was glad to be back at my old school and to see my old friends.”

This past weekend, on Saturday, Oct. 7, she was studying for a school exam, “simply living like any other teenager, worrying about school,” she said.

Just then, her world turned upside down again. Hamas launched a surprise offensive, sending thousands of rockets into Israel, and ground assault led to the kidnapping and murder Israelis and tourists within Israel. Those atrocities include “butchering of entire families”, burning of people alive”, and “beheadings,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. Hamas has made use of guerrilla tactics in the Gaza Strip over the years.

As of Thursday afternoon, 27 Americans were killed by Hamas, as confirmed by Blinken. Another 21 Thai nationals have also died. About 20 Americans and 14 Thai nationals were among the hundreds taken hostage by Hamas. Many of the hostages include children, women and the elderly. According to Thailand’s labor ministry, there are about 30,000 Thai nationals living and working in Israel.

More than 1,300 people were estimated to have died in the deadly Hamas attack.

“This attack was a campaign of pure cruelty, not just hate, but pure cruelty against the Jewish people, and I would argue it is the deadliest day for Jews since the Holocaust,” U.S. President Joe Biden said on Wednesday, as he held a round table with Jewish leaders in Washington.

The next day, Blinken added further graphic detail to some of the killings.

“A baby, an infant, riddled with bullets. Soldiers beheaded. Young people burned alive in their cars… I could go on, but it’s simply depravity in the worst imaginable way,” Blinken said.

Israeli leaders didn’t take long to respond. 

“We will wipe this thing called Hamas, ISIS-Gaza, off the face of the earth. It will cease to exist,” said Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who called for a complete siege of Gaza. “We are fighting against human animals.”

Netanyahu called Hamas “worse than ISIS” and said that his country’s response will “change the Middle East.”

Along with racial undertones by calling Palestinians “human animals”, the call to “cease to exist” Gaza is not a threat to the Hamas militants, that number in the tens of thousands, but rather the rest of the some 2.3 million civilians that live in the tightly quartered region.

The Gaza Strip is severely densely populated — it is the third-most densely populated in the world. The entire Gaza Strip is just 25 miles long and 7.5 miles wide — about the size of Monroe to Darlington long, and both towns to the Illinois border. Green and Lafayette County combine have just 53,600 residents, despite having almost 9-times the amount of land compared to the Gaza Strip.

The territory’s population of 2.3 million people has nearly doubled from just 2020. In Gaza City, about 75% of its inhabitants are under the age of 25. 

Israel not only launched a military response, it pledged to cut off food, water, fuel and electricity supplied to the entire strip.

“The Israelis are starving us by refusing us access to electricity, food, water, and fuel in along with firing rockets at us, as well they are bombing telecom companies, making us unable to check up on our loved ones or communicate with our family members outside Gaza,” Anastasia said. 

She has remained temporarily active on social media as batteries and data signals allow. Each post or addition to her social media “story” is an update to her friends and followers that she is still alive. Her last update came Thursday, Oct. 12, 2023, around noon Central time. 

The energy minister, Israel Katz, wrote on social media that no “electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened and no fuel truck will enter” until the “abductees” were free.

On Wednesday, UN secretary general António Guterres called for essential “life-saving” supplied of fuel, food and water to be allowed into Gaza. 

The UN’s World Food Program (WFP) called the situation in the Gaza Strip “dire” and warned that crucial supplies were running dangerously low after Israel imposed a total blockade on the territory.

“It’s a dire situation in the Gaza Strip that we’re seeing evolve with food and water being in limited supply and quickly running out,” Brian Lander, deputy head of emergencies at WFP, told Reuters. “We’re providing food to thousands of people that have sought shelter in schools and elsewhere across the territory. But we’re going to run out very soon. We’ve seen a number of sites that are considered humanitarian, or clinics and schools that have been hit by the strikes. So, we again, we are calling on the parties to the conflict to abide by their obligations under international humanitarian law.”

Less than two days after Hamas’ attack, Israel bombarded Palestine with more than 1,000 missiles, as well as thousands of troops being deployed with the goal of destroying Hamas.

The home the Yacoubs were rebuilding? Destroyed again.

“Sadly our house that we were building was bombed again today by the Israelis,” Anastasia said on Monday. “It turned from me worrying about the exam into me worrying about whether or not we would survive this war.”

Monday wasn’t the only day bombs rained down on the territory. School is on pause as the entire region is picking up the debris while frantically searching for survivors. Israeli settlers have even taken to the fight without military guidance, as a group fired upon a funeral of four Palestinians in the occupied West Bank on Thursday, killing a father and son.

According to Reporters Without Borders, an international non-profit, Israeli airstrikes have killed three journalists, with two others killed by gunshot wounds — though there are no confirmation of who shot the two. Another 11 UN Palestinian refugee agency workers were killed in the Gaza Strip during air strikes.

The United Nations said late on Wednesday the number of people displaced by the airstrikes had soared 30% within 24 hours to 339,000, with about two-thirds of them crowding into UN schools.

According to the Gaza health ministry, some 500 children and 276 women are among the more than 1,500 killed by Israeli strikes in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement, the World Health Organization warned the health system in the Gaza Strip was “at breaking point”, and that “time is running out to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe.” The WHO claims it has documented 34 attacks on health care in Gaza the first five days of the conflict that have resulted in the death of 11 health workers, 16 injuries, and damages to 19 health facilities and 20 ambulances.

Growing desperation

Between the wall, the sea, and a relatively small stretch of land bordering anything but Israel, those in the Gaza Strip are practically trapped in place.

Egypt has a border crossing with Gaza but it remains closed after accusations that Israeli airstrikes hit the area during the counteroffensive. The Israeli military said it could “neither confirm or deny” any attack on the crossing. According to reports, Egypt has not said whether it would even allow fleeing Palestinians into its territory.

“We haven’t been able to sleep because the occupation has been dropping missiles on so many families without notice and ordering places to be evacuated every couple of hours,” Anastasia said. “I myself keep waking up in terror to the terrifying noises of bombings and needing to quickly check up the location and check on any of my close friends who may be nearby.”

For Anastasia, like many surviving Palestinians, life in a war zone is unfortunately the norm. Even during times of supposed peace, the Israeli government controls many of the conditions Palestinians live under, like their access to transportation, fuel, electricity, food, water, phone and internet access. The political overtones, let alone the religious rivalry, leave the tension turned up to the max, with Palestine compared to a modern day apartheid or Jim Crow-era society, according to Amnesty International.

“Since Israel occupied East Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank in 1967, Palestinians ... have been continuously targeted by Israeli authorities, who use discriminatory laws to systematically dispossess Palestinians of their land and homes for the benefit of Jewish Israelis,” the international human rights organization said. “The oppression which Palestinians have faced every day, for decades ... the discrimination, the dispossession, the repression of dissent, the killings and injuries — all are part of a system which is designed to privilege Jewish Israelis at the expense of Palestinians. This is apartheid.”

The struggle of just living day to day with little freedom has not gone unnoticed in Gaza City.

“The occupation has killed and tortured Palestinians for 75 years, including men, women, and children,” Anastasia said. “(Palestine) finally took action that caused the world to start paying attention to us. But people are referring to us as terrorists, which makes no sense at all.”