In Gaza, the death toll from Israel’s nearly three-month-long bombardment has topped 22,300. An Israeli strike on the Palestinian Red Crescent’s headquarters in Khan Younis has killed at least five people, including a 5-day-old baby. Gemma Connell, who works with the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Gaza, spoke from the Al-Amal Hospital after the attack.
Gemma Connell: “This is a space where children were living. You can see on the floor the blood. The world should be absolutely horrified. The world should be absolutely outraged. A child was killed here today. Four more people were killed here today in a space that should be safe. But there is no safe space in Gaza, and the world should be ashamed.”
In Rafah, a Palestinian man has set up a tent on the rubble of his former home, which was blown up in an Israeli strike that killed his wife, six children and two grandchildren. Hamada Abu Sleyma said he survived because he had gone out to find food.
Hamada Abu Sleyma: “This place used to be the house of my family, my house, and I’m the only survivor in my family. What separated us was that I wanted to get bread from the bakery. … I wish I died with them. I wish there was no four or five minutes when I was away. That would be better than me living like this. Loneliness is tough, and parting is hard, but I’m asking God at the beginning of the new year, 2024, to give peace to the people and to give peace to the Palestinian people and for this pain to end.”
In other news from Gaza, the U.N. says half of the population is now at risk of starvation. Arif Husain, the chief economist at the World Food Programme, told The New York Times, “I’ve been to pretty much any conflict, whether Yemen, whether it was South Sudan, northeast Nigeria, Ethiopia, you name it. And I have never seen anything like this, both in terms of its scale, its magnitude, but also at the pace that this has unfolded.”
