Gaza: Palestinians are terrified of what is to come

Thousands of Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip live in a state of terror and confusion about what is to come. This is what was described by refugees who managed to flee amid Israeli air strikes in response to the Hamas invasion.

“When we started looking for information from the hospitals we work with, one person described the site as a slaughterhouse,” said Mahmoud Salabi of Medical Aid for Palestinians, which oversees support for hospitals across the Gaza Strip.

“There were bodies on the floor, there was not enough space in the intensive care unit and the medical staff were struggling to cope with the huge number of admissions. “The situation is really bad at the moment, it is one of the worst cases of escalation that we have witnessed as Palestinians,” said Mahmoud Al-Sallabi. in Gaza”. According to a report by The Guardian newspaper.

The situation in hospitals is tragic, reminiscent of a slaughterhouse

“For your safety, evacuate immediately.”

About two million people live in the Gaza Strip, where Israel launched a naval and air attack in response to the unprecedented incursion by Hamas on Saturday.

“For your safety, immediately evacuate the areas where you live,” was the general guidance to citizens in Gaza from army spokesman Avichai Andray on X (formerly Twitter). Meanwhile, many across Gaza feared there was nowhere to hide, in a 140-square-mile area long considered one of the most densely populated areas on Earth.

Al-Salabi said that relief groups working inside Gaza estimate that at least 20,000 people were displaced on the first night of the Israeli air strikes.

Shock and anger: Israelis search for loved ones after Hamas attack https://t.co/RnmzPnKFGP

-The Guardian (@TheGuardian) October 8, 2023

Bomb every 15 to 30 minutes

Although Israeli forces claim to have targeted targets linked to Hamas, Palestinians in Gaza accuse the Israeli military of striking civilian and residential infrastructure with weak links to the group, according to The Guardian.

“It was very stressful, there was bombing every 15 to 30 minutes all night,” said Mohammed Ghalayini, an air quality scientist who lives in Manchester and returned to Gaza to see his family. “People are leaving in droves for safer places.”

There is no electricity or internet

The emergency situation is worsening for medical staff throughout the Gaza Strip due to electricity shortages and due to years of Israeli attacks that have already led to the collapse of Gaza’s hospital infrastructure.

Muhammad Al-Jalaini said afterward: “I spoke this morning with a general surgeon.” He told me that they were desperately short of medical supplies, medicines, consumables, everything they would need in an emergency.

But the most important thing, as he pointed out, is the lack of a sufficient number of doctors to deal with the emergency situation by entering without stopping.

“One guy just started his training in general surgery, but he runs the general surgery department alone for about two days, while other seniors deal with more serious cases upstairs,” he emphasized, expressing in a more dramatic way the situation in Gaza.