Gaza City – Medical personnel are alarmed by the high number of casualties at Gaza’s largest hospital after a night of deadly plane crashes and killings and injuries to many Palestinians.
Shaima Ahmed Qwaider, 23, a nurse at al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, described on Sunday the horrific incidents of critically injured people arriving, some of them blasting people who have lost limbs.
“I have never seen anything like it in my life,” he told Al Jazeera. “There were body parts that were collected in a hospital bed and intolerable cases.”
As rescuers tried to evacuate the victims of the rubble, many of the survivors could not reach the hospital because the main road leading to al-Shifa – the medical center in Gaza – was also hit.
Dr Midhat Abbas from Gaza’s health ministry said 1,200 Palestinians had been injured in the seven days of the uprising, about half of them women and children.
He blamed the Israeli army for deliberately filling hospitals with bombs and bombing the streets around al-Shifa.
“They are targeting civilians, these are the ones who have been abused,” said Dr Abbas. “[Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu he wants to save himself from prison he thus decided to kill Palestinian children. ”
Airstrikes in Israel have killed 33 Palestinians, including 13 children, in Gaza on Sunday, health officials in Gaza said. The attack resulted in the death toll from Gaza to 181, including 52 children. Israelis said 10 people including two children were killed.
There were no immediate reports from Israeli forces on the threat.
‘Power is limited’
Dr Abbas said staff were repairing beds in the reception area when the hospital was full, adding that the lack of medicine and other equipment was due to the 15-year siege of Gaza by Israel and the coronavirus epidemic.
“We believe that the sick have gone to Egypt [for medical care] because our power is limited, ”Dr Abbas told Al Jazeera.
Nurse Amal Badawi described the population density of how many casualties are brought in.
“The hospital is full of people and relatives. It was difficult to work and perform the necessary support given the size of the population. The number of people injured or killed is high and they are just coming, “Badawi told Al Jazeera.
Among those killed in Sunday’s war casualties were Ayman Abu Auf, a doctor at al-Shifa, the medical ministry said.
Fahad al-Haddad, a medical expert at al-Shifa, said most of those who died at the hospital did not show any outward signs of injury, meaning they were killed by debris that had fallen on them while they were still alive.
Egypt has opened a Rafah border crossing a day earlier than it wants students, who are in need of medical care and other legal aid, said two sources at the Reuters border on Sunday.
The border was closed for the Eid al-Fitr holiday and was due to reopen on Monday.
Egypt has so far sent 16 ambulances to Gaza to pick up the victims of the Israeli bombing and treat them in Egyptian hospitals, a doctor said.
A source said 95 buses had arrived from Gaza on Sunday morning.
