FILE - Mourners comfort each other in the morgue of Al-Shifa Hospital after Israeli airstrikes killed a dozen Palestinians in Gaza City, Tuesday, May 9, 2023. As Israeli warplanes pummel Gaza to avenge the Hamas attack, Palestinians say the military has largely unleashed its fury on civilians. FILE - Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City, Wednesday, Oct. 11, 2023.
But Palestinians say Israel has largely unleashed that fury on civilians — a population that has lived for 16 years under a crippling blockade imposed by Israel and through four devastating wars and other hostilities. “In previous escalations, there would always be some time, even a half-hour, without airstrikes,” said Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent. “But now, there is not a single minute. That’s why the casualties keep going up and up.”Even in ordinary times, they’re poorly supplied. Now, there’s a shortage of everything from bandages to intravenous fluids, beds to essential drugs, said Richard Brennan, regional director of the World Health Organization.
At Shifa Hospital, doctors battled to keep the place running. Fuel supplies ran low, and panic ensued outside. As explosions crashed, women and children streamed into the streets with their belongings, some of them barefoot. The Gaza Health Ministry has reported 22 incidents in which airstrikes have killed many members of the same extended family, without providing details. The Israeli military rarely comments on individual airstrikes.
The death toll from that strike reached 12, residents said. Among the dead was a bookseller, his wife and two toddler daughters; a landlord, his son and his disabled sister; and six members of one family, leaving only its patriarch.