‘Every square metre of land has people on it’
Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Palestine Red Crescent Society, says Israeli forces are forcing Palestinians to flee to areas that are coming under frequent attacks, while other parts of Gaza are overcrowded and not fit for people to live in.
Speaking to Al Jazeera from Ramallah, Farsakh said that “today marks the sixth day of forced displacement of thousands of families in Khan Younis where the city is under repeated attacks. Israeli forces are making thousands of families flee from the south of Khan Younis to either al-Mawasi or to Deir el-Balah.”
She added, “Al-Mawasi is also an overcrowded area. There is no way to find a space to set up shelter. Every square metre of land has people on it.”
Farsakh also said that the attack on a school in Deir el-Balah left more than 100 injured, in addition to the about 30 killed, which we reported earlier. PRCS teams have evacuated the injured to hospitals, but “many others were still stuck under the rubble and our teams could not reach them”.
Those who were evacuated to Al-Aqsa Hospital are facing an overcrowded facility, she said – one that is “lacking medications and medical supplies, which is urgently needed to provide emergency medical services to this number of casualties”.
‘We have seen this over and over again’
Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric intensive care physician, says Al-Asqa Hospital is overwhelmed by the increasing number of wounded arriving in the aftermath of the Israeli attack earlier on the school sheltering wounded people and displaced Palestinians in Deir el-Balah.
“The problem when you have a mass casualty at this scale, you can’t even provide compassionate and the life care to relieve the suffering,” she told Al Jazeera from the Jordanian capital of Amman.
Haj-Hassan, who was worked in Gaza during the war, said the reports coming in show that this was a triple strike on a field clinic. “A lot of the cases that would otherwise be cared for at Al-Aqsa are being cared for in this clinic, because Al-Aqsa is above capacity,” the doctor added.
Haj-Hassan also said there are reports that up to 1,000 people were in the vicinity of this school, including patients and their caregivers.
“We have seen this over and over again, where places civilians are highly concentrated are struck by Israeli forces. The rescue workers go in to rescue any survivors and the same location is hit recurrently after that,” she added.
Injured at Al-Aqsa Hospital have burns and amputated limbs
Many of the injured reaching Al-Aqsa Hospital after an attack at a nearby evacuation centre have amputated upper or lower limbs, doctors say.
The attack also “caused severe burns to their bodies”, Khalil Dawran, a doctor at Al-Aqsa Hospital, told Al Jazeera.
Our correspondent Tareq Abu Azzoum earlier reported from inside the hospital, which was in a state of chaos. Patients, including a child, were being treated on the floor as there are not enough beds.
‘Another absolutely catastrophic day in Deir el-Balah’: Doctor
Emergency doctor James Smith has described to Al Jazeera that the situation at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir el-Balah.
“The emergency room is full of patients, many of them with severe trauma wounds,” said Smith, who worked at the hospital until last month and in regularly in touch with staff there.
Medical staff is “treating patients on the floor, providing whatever care they can, but pain relief is in chronically in short supply so that means that patients with the most horrific injuries are in pain on the floor and there’s nothing health workers can do”.
More than 30 people have been killed in air raids on a school, at least 15 of them children. “It has been another absolutely catastrophic day in Deir el-Balah,” Smith said.
