“The place is just filled with people milling around, trying to sleep, trying to find a corner to make their own, trying to find something to eat, to drink.”
A Doctors Without Borders (MSF) official has described the horrific reality for Palestinians in the Gaza Strip after more than 90 days of Israeli bombardment, saying the enclave “is gone, there’s nothing left.”
Jacob Burns, project coordinator for MSF, who arrived in southern Gaza on December 17, has worked in the besieged territory before and “knew things were going to be different” this time.
“But I have to say it was still a massive shock to cross in Gaza at Rafah and immediately to find ourselves encircled by people looking in the cars to see if we were bringing food or water, finding the streets of Rafah just absolutely full of people building shelters,” Burns said in a voice note shared on X, on Friday.
PALESTINIAN RED CRESCENT: Israeli artillery and drones are violently bombarding the vicinity of Al-Amal Hospital in Khan Yunis, south of the Gaza Strip.
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He saw camps in fields with shelters made from “thin, almost transparent sheeting,” and described the atmosphere as “just this massive overwhelming sensation of how desperate things have become here after two-and-a-bit months of war.”
Burns said hospitals are chaotic and operating “more like a camp” than a hospital.
“The place is just filled with people milling around, trying to sleep, trying to find a corner to make their own, trying to find something to eat, to drink,” he said.
‘Literally Kneeling in Blood’
One of the big problems in Gaza, he added, is that there are so many people that have been wounded.
“So, when people are coming in, they’re literally kneeling in the blood on the floor to try to save the life of the person, putting in a chest tube, even intubating on the floor, which is just really extreme,” he explained.
Burns said many shared with him “an incredibly long list of people that they’ve lost in Israeli airstrikes.”
He said the sentiment among many people that he has spoken to is that “Gaza is gone, there’s nothing left.”
AL-JAZEERA:
Sirens are sounding in the Western Galilee.
Clashes and Israeli bombing on the town of Al-Zawaideh in central Gaza.
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“And it’s difficult for them to see a life here again. Which is very sad,” he added.
In a post on X on Thursday, MSF said “No one and nowhere is safe in Gaza.”
“We need a sustained ceasefire now to prevent more deaths and injuries, to ensure the delivery of unhindered aid, and a massive scale up of healthcare to meet Gazans’ medical needs,” the organization stressed.
According to Gaza’s Ministry of Health, 22,722 Palestinians have been killed, and 58,166 wounded in Israel’s ongoing genocide in Gaza starting on October 7.
Palestinian and international estimates say that the majority of those killed and wounded are women and children.
(The Palestine Chronicle)
