The Gaza Strip is under total siege. The Palestinian enclave is under Israeli bombardment, retaliating after Hamas attacks on Saturday.
The humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip will “very quickly become unmanageable,” said the regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Fabrizio Carboni, this Thursday.
Since Saturday, the Gaza Strip has been bombed relentlessly by Israeli aircraft in retaliation for Hamas’ violent attacks in Israel. So far, these attacks have killed more than 1,300 people, most of them civilians, according to authorities, and caused widespread destruction.
The bombings have affected dozens of buildings, factories, mosques and businesses in this poor and cramped enclave of 2.3 million residents, much of whom relies on humanitarian aid. According to the United Nations, more than 338,000 people were forced to flee their homes amid the rubble in destroyed streets.
Clouds of smoke rise from Israeli airstrikes in Gaza City on October 12, 2023. – MAHMUD HAMS / AFP
Regular strikes
The Israeli army claims to have attacked specific targets, such as the homes of high-ranking Hamas officials or weapons depots. But other infrastructure was also affected, including many residential buildings.
“We were sleeping and suddenly the whole neighborhood was under bombs from the occupiers. My house was destroyed,” Jamal al-Masri told AFP.
Two men amid rubble after an Israeli attack in Jabaliya in the Gaza Strip, October 11, 2023 – MAHMUD HAMS / AFP
“Everyone is affected, there are body parts, corpses, those of my children and the children of others,” he continues.
“A ghost town”
At night, Mohammed Mazen and his neighbors stay in the entrance of their building to escape Israeli bombing. When they go out in the morning, they discover the catastrophe: their neighborhood consists only of ruins and deserted streets.
“My wife and I were like, ‘Is this all real?’ We had the impression that we were in a ghost town and that we were the only people still alive,” he told AFP.
A Palestinian sits with his two children in front of a building destroyed by an Israeli airstrike in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip, on October 12, 2023. – SAYS KHATIB / AFP
Today he wonders where to go with his family: “We’re stuck, we don’t know where to go, but we can’t stay because our apartment is covered with broken glass from the windows and fragments of shells,” he said.
“We moved to three shelters, from the Abdul Rabo area to Jbalia Al Balad, where the Israeli army ordered us to move and they bombed us in the middle of the market… There is no ‘safe place’,” another resident testified.
The Israeli army has admitted using more than 4,000 tons of explosives to bomb the Gaza Strip since Saturday.
Total blockage
In response, Israel imposes a total siege on Gazans, who live without running water, electricity or fuel. The only power plant in the area was closed due to a lack of electricity. “The only lights you can see in Gaza are those from houses that can afford generators or solar energy systems,” Gaza resident Jason Shawa told BFMTV.
The enclave also lacks food. The few shops still open are being taken by storm. “I try to buy drinking water: every day I buy six bottles,” Khaled tells BFMTV.
Palestinians fill water in Gaza City, October 12, 2023. – MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
“We are being bombed from three sides: first from the sea and from the east and north by Israeli tanks and from the sky by the air force,” he explains.
“I demand two things: either a humanitarian corridor or firefighters to help the people of Gaza,” the man concludes.
Chaos in the hospital
The injured are taken to already overstretched hospitals and have to wait for hours to be treated, sometimes on the ground. “Without electricity, hospitals risk turning into morgues,” said Fabrizio Carboni of the ICRC, saying he was particularly worried about newborns being put in incubators and patients receiving oxygen or dialysis.
People stand near the bodies of victims of Israeli airstrikes outside the mortuary of al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, October 12, 2023. – MOHAMMED ABED / AFP
There is chaos in Al-Shifa Hospital. At this facility, “many” people wait their turn in the emergency room. But “some lose their lives long before they receive care,” laments a doctor named Abdallah.
“The limited capacity (of the hospital) increases the number of victims,” he added, lamenting the lack of medical care that leads to shortages of electricity, water and oxygen.