Palestinians outside Al-Aqsa Hospital in central Gaza carry the covered bodies of the Hirzallah family members, killed in an Israeli air raid on their home [Mohammed Saber/EPA] Palestinians searching for food amid massive shortage and hunger ‘targeted’ in Jabalia refugee camp and Rafah
Deir Al Balah, December 9 (RHC)-- At least 22 Palestinians, including women and children, have been killed after Israel launched air and drone attacks across Gaza, while a power outage threatens the lives of more than 100 patients at a hospital in the besieged territory’s north.
In the latest Israeli attack in the Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza on Monday morning, three people were targeted with a missile launched from a drone, instantly killing them, sources told Al Jazeera.
“[The victims] were trying to leave their home in search of food in the vicinity of their neighbourhood when they were targeted by a drone,” said Al Jazeera’s Hani Mahmoud, reporting from central Deir el-Balah in Gaza.
“They were killed right away. Their bodies are still in the street and nobody has the ability to get to the bombed site and remove the bodies from the street.”
Jabalia has been under Israeli siege for 65 days, with thousands of Palestinians being denied access to food and water supplies, leaving many starving. “Jabalia has been turned into a graveyard,” Mahmoud said.
Overnight, an Israeli attack in the southern city of Rafah also killed 10 people while they had lined up to buy flour.
Mahmoud said because of the limited delivery of humanitarian aid going through the southern border, scenes of hunger similar to northern Gaza were also happening in the south.
In central Gaza, where our correspondent is reporting from outside Al-Aqsa Hospital, bodies were also piling up at the medical facility’s morgue following the latest Israeli bombing of a residential building in the Bureij refugee camp.
At least nine members of one family, most of them women and children, were killed in the attack, Mahmoud said. “The agony keeps on unfolding here at Al-Aqsa Hospital, where survivors and relatives showed up early this morning to collect the bodies from the morgue of the hospital,” he said.
“At some point, the morgue of the hospital was packed with the bodies and there was not enough room for more bodies.”
Meanwhile, in northern Gaza’s Kamal Adwan Hospital, the head of the facility, Hussam Abu Safia, said the lives of more than 100 patients were in danger after electricity, oxygen and water supplies were cut.
Abu Safia said recent Israeli shelling and bombing had severely damaged the hospital and cut the water and electricity supply to parts of it. “The situation is extremely dangerous. We have patients in the intensive care unit and others awaiting surgeries. Access to the operating rooms is only possible after restoring electricity and oxygen supply.
Abu Safia said the hospital currently had 112 wounded patients, including six in intensive care and 14 children. Continued shelling near the hospital was “preventing us from conducting repairs”, he said.
Israel on Friday said it was operating around the facility but had not fired directly on the hospital in Beit Lahiya, which is next to the besieged Jabalia refugee camp.
The hospital is one of the last operational medical facilities in the north of the territory. On Friday, an Israeli attack killed four of its staff.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 44,700 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip since the start of the war, according to local health authorities; most of the dead are women and children.
