In ten weeks of indiscriminate attacks and bombings on Gaza, much of the northern strip has become desert. (Photo: Internet).
Since October 7, ground and air strikes by the Israeli army have caused the deaths of 19,453 people and the injuries of 52,286 people, as well as an unspecified number of missing people, according to an update provided on Monday by the Palestinian enclave's health authorities. .
At least 25 people were killed in a nighttime bombardment by the Israeli army near the Nuseirat refugee camp in the central part of the Gaza Strip, northeast of the city of Deir al Balah.
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the victims also included journalist Haneen Ali al-Qutshan, who worked for a radio station in Gaza.
At least 110 people were killed in the bombing of residential buildings in the Jabaliya refugee camp in northern Gaza on Sunday, Munir al-Boursh, a senior health ministry official, told Al-Jazeera television.
There have been serious attacks in the area in recent days. “No one can recover the martyrs or take the wounded to hospitals,” said Amal Radwan, who is staying at a U.N. shelter in Jabaliya.
In this context, the Secretary of Defense of the United States, Lloyd Austin, arrived in Israel this Monday with the expectation that he would pressure the government of Tel Aviv in the face of growing international condemnation and allegations of genocide against the government War operations in Gaza to restrict Palestinian population. .
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his cabinet have insisted The hostilities will continue until the Islamic group Hamas is eliminated.
The United States has rejected international calls for a ceasefire, sending ammunition to its close ally while calling for more action to prevent harm to civilians.
In ten weeks of indiscriminate attacks and bombings against Gaza, much of northern Gaza has become a wasteland, leaving tens of thousands dead, injured and missing, and some 1.9 million Palestinians, nearly 85% of the Gaza enclave's population, displaced.
Most of them fill United Nations-managed shelters and tent camps in the southern part of the besieged area, in a situation where both residents and humanitarian workers from the United Nations and international NGOs denounce that there is no safe place in the area.
Attacks and bombings in hospital areas in the Gaza Strip have left most hospitals out of service.
The World Health Organization said it was “shocked” by the Israeli attack on Kamal Adwan Hospital, in the northern Gaza Strip, in recent days. At least eight patients died, including a 9-year-old, and several fled on foot because ambulances could not reach the scene, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus reported Sunday evening.
The WHO, which is trying to restore services in Shifa and was able to visit the site on Friday, He described his emergency room as a “bloodbath” with hundreds of injured patients, some of whom were on the floor in stitches and given little or no pain medication.
Tens of thousands of people sought refuge at the site despite a lack of water and food, the United Nations health agency said.
The bombings began after the Hamas attack on October 7, which left about 1,200 people dead and 240 people taken hostage.
From November 24 to December 1, 80 Israeli hostages, mostly women and children, were exchanged for 240 Palestinian prisoners without blood crimes as part of a humanitarian ceasefire agreed jointly by Qatar, Egypt and the United States.
In addition, Palestinian militias released nearly 30 other prisoners, mostly Thais, living in Israel. About 130 hostages are still being held by Hamas, which has warned that no more hostages will be released until Israeli military action ceases.
After the ceasefire expired, hostilities resumed and the flow of humanitarian aid reaching the south of the Palestinian enclave from Egypt was again reduced to a fifth of what Gaza had received before this war, according to the United Nations.
The Israeli army claims that 127 of its soldiers were killed in the Gaza offensive and that it has killed thousands of militants, without providing evidence.
The UN humanitarian chief does not rule out setting up a special court for Gaza
The head of the UN's humanitarian affairs department, Martin Griffiths, has left the door open to the creation of a special court to assess what is happening in Gaza.
“The impunity that comes with choosing war as a first option has never been greater. And impunity for the killing of humanitarian workers has never been greater…We have seen widespread impunity in this war.”Griffiths said in an interview with the Financial Times.
“A special court may be necessary”said the head of the United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs, citing the history that such spaces have when it comes to taking responsibility.
Griffiths has warned that this war, which he says is far from over, has caused the worst humanitarian crisis in Gaza's history. “I don’t think we’re even halfway there yet. “We still have many weeks until this cruel war ends,” he said.
“For us in Gaza, there is none of the normal, solid foundations that you see around the world for humanitarian operations in places like Syria and Afghanistan. “We do not have safe sites where people can safely gather to receive help and be protected.”lamented the senior UN official.
Also He assessed as “impractical” the suggestion that the United Nations should be the entity administering the Palestinian enclave. once the war ends, although this left the door open for UN observer missions, as has happened elsewhere throughout history.
Portal: Babies born in Gaza, unwashed and poorly fed, in tents
Grandma has a simple wish for her twin granddaughters Alma and Salma: that they be in a clean, safe room where they can be bathed.
Instead, the babies live in a tent in a camp for displaced people in Rafah, southern Gaza. Her mother cannot breastfeed her because she is not receiving enough nutrients for her body to produce milk. And they have never been bathed.
Alma and Salma are part of a generation of Gaza babies born into destitute and homeless families who are struggling to survive Israel's brutal military assault on their overcrowded strip of land, which has caused a humanitarian disaster.
Her grandmother, Um Mohammed al-Jadba, struggles every day to find water to prepare bottles of formula for her. Boil water in a thermos over the fire outside the tent.
“They are already a month old and have not been bathed yet. Do you see the room they live in?” He said, holding a baby in the crook of each arm as he sat in the tent. The floor consisted of mats and blankets spread out on sand.
Some belongings hung in plastic bags from plywood slats supporting the store's roof. In addition, valuable items such as clothing and a plastic water bottle were piled on the floor around the edges of the mats.
Al-Jadba said four babies in his family had been born in displaced areas since the war began: Her daughter-in-law gave birth to a girl, then her sister-in-law gave birth to a boy, then Alma and Salma were born to her other daughter-in-law.
He said that “It was a struggle to feed them all. “The whole family was hungry.”
“There is no diet [para las madres], no food to eat, how can they breastfeed? There is nothing for them to eat. Every day I feed them thyme, otherwise there is nothing to eat.”said.
The family initially moved from Gaza City to Khan Younis, the capital in the south of the Gaza Strip. There, in Nasser Hospital, the twins were born. When Israeli forces expanded their ground attack south, the family moved back to Rafah.
“Our hope was that these children would be born in a safe place, without airstrikes, without wars, without the displacement that these children experience,” al-Jadba said, holding the girls.
One was fast asleep, dressed in white pajamas with colorful butterflies and wrapped in a turquoise blanket. The other wore white pajamas and a pink blanket, looked around with wide eyes, shook her little fists and turned her face toward her grandmother when she spoke.
“They need to be born in a safe place, in a clean room, to be bathed. What mistake have these children made?”said the grandmother.
In other parts of the camp where Alma and Salma live, other families with babies face similar difficulties.
Yasmine Saleh cradled her daughter Toleen, who was born on October 15, eight days after the war. Behind her were bright green pajamas and a small pink bib, spread out to dry on the sloping roof of her tent.
“I never thought I would give birth in a situation like this, or that I would put my daughter in a tent in cold, icy weather,” said Saleh, who wrapped her baby in layers of colorful blankets.
Inside was a duffel bag full of plastic water bottles and a baby bottle for Toleen, along with the family's food supply: a small plate of pasta and a few sweet potatoes and peppers.
“The situation is extremely difficult. We don’t eat much, so she doesn’t get breast milk.”Saleh added.
“We want a good life and security so that they can return to our homes if they are still standing. So that she can live a good life, far away from war. Have a stable and secure life.”
