Gaza City, October 14 (RHC)-- Hospital morgues in Gaza are being overwhelmed by the number of people killed in Israeli air attacks, so ice cream trucks and refrigerated food vehicles are being used to store bodies.  “The hospital’s board of directors have no way to know if we’re going to be bombed or not.  But they’re sure that we are doing the right thing.

“We are absolutely right to heed the call of duty; as doctors, as nurses, all of us need to unite at times like this.”   In addition to working around the clock to treat all the injured people who have come through the doors, the hospital has opened its doors to those fleeing the destruction and looking for what they hope is a safe place to shelter.

Many people are afraid to heed Israel’s demand that they head south because convoys of evacuating people have been hit, and everyone in the hospital – doctors, patients, medics – is afraid that if they try to leave they will be killed on the road.

And so they huddle together, sleep deprived and running dangerously low on food and water.  The hospital says it has been receiving support from people living around it who are bringing in food and basic supplies for the patients and people seeking refuge.

“Working in a hospital, we hardly have time to eat on a normal day, so it is definitely not our priority right now,” another nurse said, explaining that any assistance is used for the patients.

All of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip are stretched several times beyond capacity, to the point that patients are lying in the corridors and dead bodies have to be kept in refrigerated food or ice-cream trucks and lined up on the sidewalks before burial because the morgues are so full.