Israeli bombardment from the air, land, and sea continues to be reported Friday and Saturday across much of the Gaza Strip, resulting in further civilian casualties, displacement, and destruction of houses and other civilian infrastructure. Ground incursions and heavy fighting also continue to be reported.
Palestinians mourns their relatives at Shuhada al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir al-Balah in Gaza Strip, July 20, 2024 (Photo: WAFA)
Israeli occupation forces committed new massacres against families in the Gaza Strip over the last 24 hours, resulting in the documented killing of at least 37 Palestinians and the injury of 54 others, according to medical sources. Local health authorities confirmed that the Palestinian death toll from the Israeli onslaught since October 7 has risen to 38,919 reported fatalities, with an additional 89,622 individuals sustaining injuries. The majority of the victims are women and children.
Ambulance and rescue teams are still unable to reach many casualties and dead bodies trapped under the rubble or scattered on roads across the war-torn enclave, as Israeli occupation forces continue to obstruct the movement of ambulance and civil defense crews.
About 1,500 hospital beds are currently available in Gaza to cover the needs of more than two million people, compared with 3,500 beds before the war, according to medical teams. On last Thursday, July 18, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) stressed that repeated mass casualty events “have stretched to breaking point” the response capacity of the 60-bed Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah, which is nearly at full capacity. Following the July 13 airstrikes on Al Mawasi area in Khan Younis, the facility treated 26 wounded patients (including children), eight of whom required immediate surgeries due to severe life- and limb-threatening injuries. The field hospital’s outpatient department also received 850 patients in the second week of July, nearly half were women and a third children, ICRC stated.
Conditions are similarly critical at other health facilities in central Gaza. Médecins sans Frontières (MSF) reports that, so far in July, its teams at the MSF clinic and Nasser Medical Complex in Khan Younis and at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir al Balah have responded to four mass casualty incidents, most recently on July 15. The pediatric emergency department at Nasser hospital, which is already overstretched and under-resourced, provided consultations to a daily average of more than 300 children between June 29 and July 5, and children admitted for inpatient care are being forced to share beds, MSF added.
Visiting Nasser recently, the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) reported seeing “babies, children, newborns and mothers on mattresses in the corridor” due to the lack of sufficient capacity. Pre-term deliveries and maternal complications, including eclampsia, hemorrhage and sepsis, have been rising, according to MSF, as pregnant women struggle to access health-care facilities, being forced to navigate unsafe routes to reach hospitals amid active conflict. After giving birth, they are rapidly discharged, returning to tents and shelters where they and their newborns face manifold health risks. Nasser Medical Complex is currently the only tertiary hospital providing maternal and pediatric care in Khan Younis, and efforts have begun to restore services at the European Gaza Hospital, also in Khan Younis, after it was evacuated on July 2, according to the Ministry of Health in Gaza.
Related: https://maki.org.il/en/?p=31979
