UNITED NATIONS, Jul 15 : Fresh Israeli airstrikes struck southern and central areas of Gaza on Monday as UN humanitarians and partners continued to treat the victims of a deadly strike on Al Mawasi in southwest Gaza on Saturday that reportedly left at least 90 dead and around 300 injured, according to the United Nations.
In an update from Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis where victims have been admitted, veteran UN aid official Scott Anderson reported witnessing “some of the most horrific” scenes he had experienced in his nine months in Gaza.
“With not enough beds, hygiene equipment, sheeting or scrubs, many patients were treated on the ground without disinfectants, ventilation systems were switched off due to a lack of electricity and fuel, and the air was filled with the smell of blood,” said Anderson, Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza.
The overwhelmed facility received more than 100 severe cases in one day, the UNRWA official continued. “I saw toddlers who are double amputees, children paralyzed and unable to receive treatment and others separated from their parents,” Anderson said, adding that parents had moved into the “so-called humanitarian zone” of Al Mawasi, in the hope that their children would be safe there.
In a statement, the Israeli military claimed that it had been targeting a Hamas military commander, Mohammed Dief, at Al Mawasi, which lies west of Khan Younis city, by the coast. The sand and seafront zone is now home to hundreds of thousands of people, including many forcibly uprooted from Rafah in southernmost Gaza in early May ahead of an incursion by Israeli forces.
According to media reports, Hamas rejected the claim that Deif was in the area, saying “these false claims are merely a cover-up for the scale of the horrific massacre.” The strike took place in an area Israel’s military had designated as safe for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians.
Monday’s renewed hostilities in Rafah and central Gaza followed media reports of another strike on an UNRWA school-turned-shelter on Sunday in Nuseirat refugee camp. At least 17 people are believed to have died in the attack at the school, according to the local authorities.
Two other UNRWA schools were hit last week, with 190 of the UN agency’s facilities struck since the war erupted.
Last Wednesday, the UN aid coordination office, OCHA, led an inter-agency mission to two informal shelter sites at Al Bureij and Al Maghazi refugee camps in Deir al Balah, central Gaza.
In Al Bureij, OCHA reported that 3,800 people were sharing 388 tents with no health services nor basic items including water and hygiene products. In Al Maghazi, more than 1,000 people including seven cancer patients were crammed into a damaged UNRWA school with no medical care, water or food.
“My colleagues from the humanitarian community are doing everything possible to increase medical capacity in Gaza, but impediments to humanitarian operations prevent us from supporting people anywhere near the scale necessary,” Anderson said, before repeating calls for an immediate ceasefire, the release of all remaining Israeli hostages taken on 7 October, and a “meaningful opportunity” for healing to begin, stressing that civilians must be protected at all times.
Multiple obstacles continue to prevent an appropriate level of aid entering Gaza, including long delays at checkpoints and a breakdown in law and order among people desperate for food. But efforts to provide referral services, tents, beds, stretchers, disposables and medications are ongoing, Mr. Anderson said.
Around 1.9 million displaced people in Gaza face dire conditions as the conflict continues to escalate, with thousands lacking clean water, sanitation and food, according to the latest reports from humanitarian agencies.
At a school in Deir al Balah where 14,000 people are sheltering, only 25 toilets are available, UNRWA noted. An ongoing lack of fuel deliveries into the enclave has also continued to hamper aid relief operations and the running of desalination plants, hospitals and other public services, with only 25 per cent of the daily fuel needed for humanitarian operations reported to have entered Gaza so far in July, causing a 40 per cent drop in public water distribution.
And amid ever-present fears of rising levels of malnutrition among the most vulnerable, the UN World Health Organization (WHO) warned that lack of access to food, water, sanitation and basic health services was leaving people more vulnerable to disease.
Between 8 and 11 July, 152 Palestinians were killed and 392 injured, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health (MoH). Since 7 October, at least 38,345 Palestinians have been killed and 88,295 injured, according to local health authorities in Gaza.
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