1 of 5 Many buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since tensions rose this week Photo: Portal Many buildings in Gaza have been damaged or destroyed since tensions rose this week Photo: Portal
At least that’s what the United Nations (UN) said this Thursday (12). 340,000 Gazans had to leave their homes in recent days due to bombings by Israel following the Hamas attack last Saturday (7).
This emerges from a report published this morning by the Palestinian government 1,417 people died in Gaza since the Israeli attacks began. Among them are 447 children and 248 women.
In Israel: The death toll in the attack by the terrorist group Hamas is 1,300. The victims also include women and minors. This week, an Israeli army officer even claimed that babies had even been killed in a kibbutz attacked by Hamas.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu posted photos on social media of babies killed and burned by Hamas terrorists. He said he showed the images to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who is visiting Israel this Thursday.
Without water, food and energy
2 out of 5 Local authorities in Gaza urge residents to conserve water amid growing shortages Photo: Portal Local authorities in Gaza urge residents to conserve water amid growing shortages Photo: Portal
In Gaza, Palestinians have no water, no food and no electricityafter Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared a “complete siege” on the Gaza Strip this week.
On Tuesday (10th) UN High Commissioner Volker Türk even declared that the siege was prohibited under humanitarian law. Around 2.3 million people live in Gaza today. According to the international organization, the region still has four to five days of fuel supplies.
“Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” said the regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Fabrizio Carboni, this Thursday (12).
“The human misery caused by this escalation is abhorrent and I implore the parties to alleviate the suffering of civilians,” he added.
The humanitarian situation in Gaza is “terrible,” added this Thursday (12) the deputy head of emergencies at the UN World Food Program (WFP), Brian Lander.
“There will be no humanitarian exceptions”
3 in 5 Palestinian children are treated in a Gaza hospital under Israeli bombing Photo: Ali Mahmoud/AP Palestinian children are treated in a Gaza hospital under Israeli bombing Photo: Ali Mahmoud/AP
Contrary to the Red Cross’s demands, Israel said there would be “no humanitarian exceptions” to the siege of Gaza until all of its hostages were released.
It is believed that 150 people were taken to the Gaza region by Hamas terrorists.
“Humanitarian aid for Gaza? […] “No fire hydrants will be opened and no tankers will be driven until the Israeli hostages return home,” Israeli Energy Minister Israel Katz wrote on Twitter.
“This is different, it’s unprecedented, the rules have changed,” said 24yearold Israeli reservist Yonatan Steiner, who returned from New York, where he works for a technology company.
“Only with the clothes on your back”
Nearly 220,000 homeless people in Gaza have been housed in 92 United Nationsrun schools, Portal news agency reported.
One of them was converted into a shelter. Hanan AlAttar, 14, said his family ran out of the house with only the clothes on their backs as bombs fell nearby. Her uncle even came home to get clothes but was killed when the house was hit.
“They bomb the homes of civilians, women and children from above,” his grandfather said.
4 of 5 Funeral of Palestinians from the Samour family killed in Israeli attacks on their home in Khan Younis. Photo: Portal/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa Funeral of Palestinians from the Samour family, who were killed in Israeli attacks on their home in Khan Younis. — Photo: Portal/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
On Wednesday evening (11), more than eight members of the same family known as the Samour family were killed in a bomb attack on a residential building in Khan Younis.
Relatives and friends rushed to the mortuary to collect the eight bodies that rescue teams had already recovered. Another ten were believed to still be under the rubble of the family home.
Their bodies were taken in a truck covered in floral hospital blankets to a vacant lot on the same street where the building’s rubble was located, then lined up in white shrouds one of which was stained with blood while hundreds of men stood nearby prayed.
Gravediggers removed soil from a long trench and marked individual graves with concrete blocks. A man held his head with one hand and stroked a body wrapped in a shroud with the other before it was placed in the grave as a woman wept.
“These are our relatives and inlaws,” said Abdelaziz alFahem. “This is a civilian family that was bombed by Israeli forces. It is a real massacre,” he added.
5 of 5 Funeral of Palestinians from the Samour family who were killed in Israeli attacks on their home in Khan Younis Photo: Portal/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa Funeral of Palestinians from the Samour family who were killed in Israeli attacks on their home in Khan Younis Photo: Portal/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Explosions reverberated across Gaza throughout the night. Fireballs from airstrikes pulsed red in the darkness over cities and refugee camps without electricity to light the streets.
From the air, drone footage of the destruction showed holes between compacted concrete buildings, with wooden planks and twisted metal bars wedged in the remains of bombed houses as residents searched through them.
In Khan Younis, a group of people stood on the rubble left over from the destruction of a house by an air strike. A mattress, pillows and lightcolored sheets were covered in soot and dust amid the debris that emerged between the concrete blocks.
A woman’s body was lifted onto a white sheet and carried on a stretcher by a group of men and boys. An elderly woman dressed all in black stumbled through an alley and suddenly fainted and cried with grief.
At another bomb site, six men ran down a street carrying a stretcher carrying the body of a dustcovered man with twisted limbs. A woman saw who was there and started screaming.
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