The majority of Gaza’s 2.3 million residents are without access to running water and power. They are surrounded by hundreds of Israeli airstrikes and have nowhere to go.
More than a thousand Palestinians have been dead in the Palestinian territory’s near-constant shelling since Saturday, according to Palestinian health officials. This severe retribution came in response to a Hamas strike on Israel, which the Israeli military claims resulted in the deaths of over 1,200 people.
The single power plant in Gaza finally shut down on Wednesday after operating intermittently for days due to a lack of fuel. Water can’t be pumped into homes if there’s no electricity to do so. It’s practically pitch black at night, with occasional flashes of light from firecrackers and phone flashlights.
A Palestinian girl walks on the street in Gaza City with two children in her arms after an Israeli bombing. FILE: AFP
A Palestinian girl walks on the street in Gaza City with two children in her arms after an Israeli bombing. FILE: AFP
Israeli airstrikes on the northern Gaza town of Beit Hanoun left the 35-year-old father of four homeless. “I lived through all the wars and incursions in the past, but I have never witnessed anything worse than this war,” Yamen Hamad said.
Relatives and friends queued outside the mortuary as remains were put out on the floor at a hospital in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, because the facility’s refrigerators were either full or had no power.
The grieving hoped to get their dear ones buried quickly before the extreme heat caused further damage. After a quick prayer was said over each body, the survivors either used stretchers to transport the remains to adjacent graves or just used their bare hands.
Among the more than three dozen people Reuters spoke with in Gaza, the vast majority shared Hamad’s views. Their descriptions of the greatest violence they’d ever witnessed evoked feelings of dread and helplessness.
Egyptian officials have closed the strip’s other border, so its inhabitants feel trapped. As Israel pursues vengeance for Saturday’s attack, many worried the worst was yet to come, including a possible ground invasion.
Western governments, led by the United States, issued sharp condemnations of the Hamas attack.
An ‘unprecedented’ number of civilians were killed.
On Wednesday, Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel will wipe Hamas “off the face of the Earth” and that the military campaign in Gaza would be escalated.
According to Hamas and locals, many roads and buildings were destroyed and thousands of people were displaced as Israel launched retaliatory attacks near the border town of Beit Hanoun.
Damage from overnight Israeli airstrikes in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, as a Palestinian man points out the devastation. PHOTO:AFP
Damage from overnight Israeli airstrikes in the Jabalia refugee camp in the Gaza Strip, as a Palestinian man points out the devastation. PHOTO:AFP
Ala al-Kafarneh’s family was trapped.
The 31-year-old claimed he and his pregnant wife, father, brothers, cousins, and in-laws fled the village on Saturday. They drove to the coastal Beach Refugee Camp in the hopes of finding safety there, but when aerial raids started hitting that region too, they fled inland to the Sheikh Radwan neighbourhood.
He continued by saying that an airstrike had struck the building where Kafarneh and his family had taken refuge on Tuesday night, killing everyone inside except for himself.
Outside the Shifa hospital in Gaza City, Kafarneh said, his head slashed and a plaster cast running from his shoulder to his wrist, “We escaped from danger into death.” Next to the hospital, he and hundreds of other people were sitting on the sidewalk. Some people claimed they thought its presence would shield them from the attacks.
Youssef Dayer, 45, sat on the ground outside of the hospital and stated, “I’m homeless now.” Perhaps it’s secure. Maybe. Surely this is a civilian area devoid of conflict? To be sure, it’s possible. Nothing looks secure,” he continued.
Others threw themselves face first onto the cold, hard ground outside the hospital, while others had brought blankets or strips of cardboard. People waited in long lines to use the few available restrooms inside the hospital.
The United Nations estimates that over 175,000 Palestinians have fled their homes since Saturday. Despite several conflicts and 16 years of an Israeli siege since Hamas gained power in Gaza in 2007 following a brief civil war with troops loyal to Fatah, the faction loyal to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, some relief agencies in Gaza claim conditions are the worst they can remember.
Hisham Muhanna, a spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Gaza, has remarked, “The civilian loss this time… is unprecedented.”
Mohammad Abu Mughaseeb, a doctor with Medecins Sans Frontiers, stated that a dearth of medical supplies has persisted for years at another facility. He predicted that supplies would run out in a matter of weeks as the Israeli siege was tightened.
He had to spend the night at the hospital after an explosion destroyed his home. “If things continue like this for a few days the health system will collapse,” he warned.
Due to the blackout, the enclave has lost access to a significant portion of its water supply. Men, boys, and a horse stood by one of Khan Younis’s few stores, loading massive tanks onto rickshaws, carts, and a small waggon.
The Palestinian Ministry of Health has warned that in the next days, gasoline generators used to power hospitals and other medical facilities may run out. The government agency expressed concern that the territory’s sewage treatment infrastructure would also fail.
It seemed like a building had fallen on top of me.
As dawn breaks in Gaza, residents are confronted with the sight of fresh wreckage caused by Israeli airstrikes.
Due to the destruction of the roads, civil defence personnel are frequently unable to access bomb sites, leaving locals to remove the debris on their own.
They demolished the entire structure. An unidentified man who escaped from a fallen building in Gaza’s Zeitoun neighbourhood said, “I was sleeping here when it collapsed on top of me.”
He and another man were using their phone lights to check an adjacent building’s interior before emerging from an inside stairwell with many survivors and a few bodies.
Families have taken refuge in UN classrooms, some sleeping on mattresses and others on blankets, as they have nowhere else to go.
The youngsters and their parents were kept up all night at one Gaza City school because to the constant bombing. Fearing that they would be buried by airstrikes that pancake concrete buildings, many individuals sat in the open.
A guy cradled his small daughter in his arms as they waited at the end of a dusty alleyway in Khan Younis, the ambulance’s siren wailing. Don’t be afraid, he repeated to himself over and over.
