Doctors in Gaza described scenes of “armageddon” as they struggled to tend to hundreds of dead and wounded, including children with severed limbs, as Israel launched some of its deadliest-ever strikes, shattering the relative calm of a ceasefire.
The ferocious bombardment came after Israel had imposed a two-week blockade on aid, supplies, and electricity, crippling the emergency responses. It pounded swathes of the strip early Tuesday morning, bringing an already struggling healthcare system to its knees.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he had ordered the strikes because of Hamas’s rejection of a new ceasefire proposal. He vowed that Israel would “from now on, act against Hamas with increasing military strength”.
Palestinian health officials said that in just a few hours alone, over 400 people had been killed, the vast majority women and children.
Doctors told The Independent they could not cope with the injured and dying, as a total blockade on supplies meant they lacked basic necessities, including diesel for generators and essential surgical items like gloves, swabs, and syringes. Gaza Health Ministry officials said that only seven of the territory’s hospitals were providing services.
Dr Muhammad Abuafash, director of Palestinian Medical Relief, who rushed to treat those at al-Ahli hospital in Gaza City, said the few medics available struggled to decide who to treat first, as patients and bloodied bodies intermingled on the floor.
“The vast majority of the wounded are children. We’re talking about large numbers of children with severed limbs,” he said in desperation, adding that emergency workers were still pulling the wounded and the dead out from under the rubble.
“There are not enough medical facilities or supplies, nor are there enough medical personnel. The doctors deal with injuries without preference, unfortunately.”
Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a pediatric intensive care physician working with Medical Aid for Palestinians inside Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, described being woken before dawn by an “airstrike frenzy.”
“The ER was just chaos, patients everywhere on the floor,” she said in a voice recording, adding that the paediatric intensive are unit beds were full and in the first couple of hours, more than 70 bodies were brought in and taken immediately to the morgue.
“There were probably three men, and the rest were all children, women, the elderly – it was everybody caught in their sleep, still wrapped in their blankets. Terrifying, a level of horror and evil that is hard to articulate. It felt like Armageddon.”
Dr Mohammad Qishta, an MSF emergency doctor at Nasser Hospital, said the emergency department was “disastrous.”
“We received no less than 400 cases in less than two hours. We received many bodies and parts of bodies, most of them children and women,” he continued.
Palestinian civilians and international aid workers described being shaken awake at 2am by the sound of heavy bombing as Israel launched some of the strongest attacks in the 15-month war.
