Honest, paywall-free news is rare. Please support our boldly independent journalism with a donation of any size.
Israel is dropping bombs on Gaza with such destructive power that the strikes are disintegrating Palestinians’ bodies, a UN officer has reported as Israeli forces are killing dozens each day with relentless bombardments in the region.
UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) communications officer Louise Wateridge told BBC that doctors at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza have told her that bodies are “evaporating” due to strikes on tent camps for Palestinians who have been forcibly displaced due to Israeli forces destroying the vast majority of buildings.
Doctors “speak about the strikes being so fierce and relentless. People are now sheltering in tents. They have much less protection than they did a year ago when they were in buildings,” Wateridge said. “They’re telling me that bodies are completely evaporating, and they’re not even finding remains of people anymore after these strikes because there is no protection for them at all.”
Many Palestinians in Israel’s designated “humanitarian safe zone” in southern Gaza are sheltering in tents and makeshift shelters after being displaced, for most multiple times. Despite these tent camps being relatively bare, with little but tarps and cloths above families’ heads, Israeli forces have dropped 2,000-pound bombs and other bombs with huge destructive power on the region.
Just last week, Israeli forces bombed the “safe zone” in al-Mawasi, killing at least 23 Palestinians, including four children. The strike targeted a densely populated tent camp, and caused a fire to break out that reportedly burned people alive, one human rights group said.
“The doctors just are absolutely besides themselves because not only are people being killed in the bombs and the strikes, they’re now also watching them die from illnesses that would normally be able to treated, but they don’t have the medication, they don’t have the medical care,” the UN officer went on, saying that treatable illnesses like diabetes have become a death sentence for many.
Israeli forces have been blocking the vast majority of humanitarian aid from entering Gaza, while reportedly empowering looting gangs who attack and seize what little aid Israel does allow in. This month, UNRWA said that it has been forced to stop using the main aid crossing, Kerem Abu Salem, due in part to Israeli-sanctioned violence in the region. UN agencies have warned that the entire humanitarian operation across Gaza is collapsing.
The lack of aid like food and medical supplies is the worst in the north, the current focal point of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) for the occupied Palestinian territories, Israeli forces have been blocking nearly all aid from entering northern Gaza for 66 days, after the start of Israel’s escalated invasion there in October.
This has left an estimated 65,000 to 75,000 people in the region “without access to food, water, electricity or reliable health care, as mass casualty incidents continue to be reported,” the UN agency said. Meanwhile, it noted, Israel is still enforcing mass displacement orders, with 5,500 people displaced in Beit Lahiya over the past week alone.
The Gaza Health Ministry warned on Tuesday that there are roughly 60 patients at Indonesian Hospital in north Gaza who are at imminent risk of dying of starvation and dehydration due to the blockade. Meanwhile, more people are in need of medical care each day due to Israel’s bombing campaign, which killed another 28 people and wounded 54 in the last 24-hour reporting period, the ministry reported.
Press freedom is under attack
As Trump cracks down on political speech, independent media is increasingly necessary.
Truthout produces reporting you won’t see in the mainstream: journalism from the frontlines of global conflict, interviews with grassroots movement leaders, high-quality legal analysis and more.
Our work is possible thanks to reader support. Help Truthout catalyze change and social justice — make a tax-deductible monthly or one-time donation today.