War in the Middle East
Aid organizations are sounding the alarm: “horror” in the Gaza Strip
Palestinians inspect a destroyed house after an Israeli airstrike. photo
© Abed Rahim Khatib/dpa
Israel is intensifying its war against the Islamist Hamas in Gaza. Aid organizations warn of dramatic conditions in the coastal area. They also call for more protection for civilians.
“When I see child after child being wheeled in, parents screaming on gurneys with terrible war injuries – they are not safe in hospitals or shelters,” Elder said. In addition to the danger of attacks, the people in the south of the Gaza Strip are also made more difficult by the fact that they are already exhausted from fleeing the north.
“The extent of human suffering is unbearable”
The President of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Mirjana Spoljaric, complained that adequate humanitarian assistance is currently not possible. “The level of human suffering is unbearable,” she said during a visit to the disputed Palestinian territory. It is also unacceptable that there are no safe havens for the population.
Photos showed people camping in makeshift tent camps and outdoors among rubble and destroyed buildings.
Save the Children warned of the enormous risks the fighting in southern Gaza poses to children. After new calls from Israel’s military to evacuate areas, there is no longer a single safe place for children in Gaza, said country director Jason Lee. “An unprecedented humanitarian crisis is now finally becoming a catastrophe for the civilian population in the Gaza Strip.”
Hamas authority: Death toll in Gaza rises to almost 15,900
Because of the high number of civilian casualties in the Gaza Strip as a result of the massive attacks, international criticism of the Israeli army’s actions is growing. The military, in turn, accuses the Islamist Hamas of carrying out attacks from residential areas and hospitals and using civilians as human shields.
The number of Palestinians killed in the Gaza Strip has risen to 15,899 since the start of the war, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health. A spokesman said on Monday that around 42,000 people were injured. Thousands of people are still missing. On Sunday the authorities spoke of more than 15,500 deaths.
The number of victims cannot currently be independently verified, but the United Nations and other observers point out that the authority’s figures have proven to be overall credible in the past.
According to information, this is by far the highest number of Palestinians killed during a war in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
UNRWA: almost 1.9 million internally displaced people in the Gaza Strip
According to the Palestinian relief organization UNRWA, almost 1.9 million people are on the run. This is more than 80 percent of the population, said UNRWA. Almost a million internally displaced people are staying in 99 facilities in the center of the coastal region and in Khan Yunis and Rafah in the south. More than 2.2 million people live in the Gaza Strip – in an area that is only slightly larger than that of the city of Munich.