Gazans FLEE to safet y
Israel rains missiles on Gaza, flattening several big buildings; bodies of a family of 6 including 4 children found in rubble
Palestinians grabbed their children and belongings and fled neighbourhoods on the outskirts of Gaza City on Friday as Israel unleashed a heavy barrage of tank fire and airstrikes.
In the West Bank, Palestinian health officials said seven Palestinians were killed by Israeli army fire in several locations. Most were killed in stone-throwing clashes.
Before dawn on Friday, Israeli tanks and warplanes carried out an intense barrage on the northern end of the Gaza Strip.
In the darkness, Houda Ouda and her extended family ran frantically inside their home in
the town of Beit Hanoun, trying to find shelter as the earth shook for two and half hours, Ouda recalled.
“We even did not dare to look from the window to know what is being hit,” she said. When daylight came, she saw the swath of destruction outside: streets cratered, buildings crushed, their facades torn off, an olive tree burned bare, dust and powered concrete covering everything.
Among the dead was a family of six. Rafat Tanani, his pregnant wife and four children, aged 7 and under, were killed after an Israeli warplane reduced their four-storey apartment building to
rubble in the neighbouring town of Beit Lahia, residents said.
When the sun rose, residents streamed out of the area in pickup trucks, on donkeys and on foot, taking pillows, blankets, pots and pans and bread.
“We were terrified for our children, who were screaming and shaking,” said Hedaia Maarouf, who fled with her extended family of 19 people, including 13 children.
Thousands crowded into 16 Un-run schools for shelter, said Adnan Abu Hasna, a spokesman for UNRWA, the UN relief agency for Palestinians. —
Just weeks ago, the Gaza Strip’s feeble health system was struggling with a runaway surge of coronavirus cases. Authorities cleared out hospital operating rooms, suspended nonessential care and redeployed doctors to patients having difficulty breathing. Then, the bombs began to fall.
Doctors across the crowded coastal enclave are now reallocating intensive care unit beds and scrambling to keep up with a very different health crisis: treating blast and shrapnel wounds, bandaging cuts and performing amputations.
Distraught relatives didn’t wait for ambulances, rushing the wounded by car or on foot to Shifa Hospital, the territory’s largest. Exhausted doctors hurried from patient to patient, frantically bandaging shrapnel wounds to stop the bleeding. Others gathered at the hospital morgue, waiting with stretchers to remove the bodies for burial.
At the Indonesia Hospital in Jabaliya, the clinic overflowed after bombs fell nearby. Blood was everywhere, with victims lying on the floors of hallways. Relatives crowded the ER, crying out for loved ones and cursing Israel.
“Before the military attacks, we had major shortages and could barely manage with the second (virus) wave,” said Gaza Health Ministry official Abdelatif Al Hajj by phone as bombs thundered in the background. “Now casualties are coming from all directions, really critical casualties. I fear a total collapse.”
Nurses at the European Hospital in the town of Khan Younis, frantically needing room for the wounded, moved dozens of virus patients in the middle of the night to a different building, said hospital director Yousef Al Akkad. Its surgeons and specialists, who had deployed elsewhere for the virus, rushed back to treat head injuries, fractures and abdominal wounds.
At Shifa, authorities also moved the wounded into its 30 beds that had been set aside for virus patients. Patients with broken bones and other wounds lay amid the din of beeping monitors, intercoms and occasional shouts by doctors.
“About 12 people down in one air strike. It was 6pm in the street. Some were killed, including my two cousins and young sister. It’s like this every day,” said 22-year-old Atallah Al Masri, sitting beside his wounded brother, Ghassan.
International Criminal court investigation into possible war crimes during the 2014 war, reiterated this week that it warns people living in targeted areas to flee. The airstrikes nonetheless have killed civilians and inflicted damage on Gaza’s infrastructure. —