Gaza residents lose entire families, fear more destruction
Published: 05:10 PM,Oct 15,2023 | EDITED : 09:10 PM,Oct 15,2023
GAZA: As Israel prepared on Sunday for a ground assault on the Gaza Strip, Palestinians who have lost family members in air strikes were bracing for more destruction.
Um Mohammad Al-Laham's 4-year-old granddaughter Fulla Al-Laham lay in a Gaza hospital, which like others is operating on low supplies of medicine and fuel. She said an Israeli air strike hit the family home, killing 14 people including Fulla's parents, siblings and members of her extended family.
'All of a sudden and without warning, they bombed the house on top of the residents inside. No-one survived except my grandchild Fulla,' said the grandmother, who has witnessed many wars between One other 4-year-old child in the family had also been left with almost no relatives, the grandmother said.
Israel has unleashed the heaviest air strikes ever on Gaza.
It has vowed to annihilate the Palestinian group Hamas in retaliation for a rampage by its fighters in Israeli towns eight days ago.
Israel has put Gaza, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, under siege and told people to leave their homes in the north of the enclave and move south.
The United Nations says so many people cannot be safely moved within Gaza without causing a humanitarian disaster.
Some residents said they would not leave, remembering the 'Nakba,' or 'catastrophe,' of 1948 when many Palestinians were forced from their homes during the war that accompanied Israel's creation.
Rescue workers searched for survivors of night-time air raids.
The expected Israeli ground offensive and the air strikes have raised fears of unprecedented suffering in the narrow, impoverished enclave, one of the most crowded places in the world.
At Gaza's Kamal Edwan Hospital, where some children were attached to ventilators, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, said: 'If you want to kill us, kill us while we continue working here, we will not leave. We need days and weeks to secure another place.'
'The situation is really dangerous,' he said. 'Transferring these children from this place means handing them a death sentence. They will die and this equipment only operates with electricity and oxygen.'
Hospitals say they are running out of medicine and fuel under the Israeli blockade.
Witnesses in Gaza City said that the Israeli offensive had forced more people from their homes, some seeking shelter at medical facilities. Gaza's largest Shifa hospital was overcrowded.
Taking the road to southern Gaza has become more difficult as several people who made the journey say Israel continues to bomb around it. — Reuters
Um Mohammad Al-Laham's 4-year-old granddaughter Fulla Al-Laham lay in a Gaza hospital, which like others is operating on low supplies of medicine and fuel. She said an Israeli air strike hit the family home, killing 14 people including Fulla's parents, siblings and members of her extended family.
'All of a sudden and without warning, they bombed the house on top of the residents inside. No-one survived except my grandchild Fulla,' said the grandmother, who has witnessed many wars between One other 4-year-old child in the family had also been left with almost no relatives, the grandmother said.
Israel has unleashed the heaviest air strikes ever on Gaza.
It has vowed to annihilate the Palestinian group Hamas in retaliation for a rampage by its fighters in Israeli towns eight days ago.
Israel has put Gaza, home to 2.3 million Palestinians, under siege and told people to leave their homes in the north of the enclave and move south.
The United Nations says so many people cannot be safely moved within Gaza without causing a humanitarian disaster.
Some residents said they would not leave, remembering the 'Nakba,' or 'catastrophe,' of 1948 when many Palestinians were forced from their homes during the war that accompanied Israel's creation.
Rescue workers searched for survivors of night-time air raids.
The expected Israeli ground offensive and the air strikes have raised fears of unprecedented suffering in the narrow, impoverished enclave, one of the most crowded places in the world.
At Gaza's Kamal Edwan Hospital, where some children were attached to ventilators, Dr Hussam Abu Safiya, said: 'If you want to kill us, kill us while we continue working here, we will not leave. We need days and weeks to secure another place.'
'The situation is really dangerous,' he said. 'Transferring these children from this place means handing them a death sentence. They will die and this equipment only operates with electricity and oxygen.'
Hospitals say they are running out of medicine and fuel under the Israeli blockade.
Witnesses in Gaza City said that the Israeli offensive had forced more people from their homes, some seeking shelter at medical facilities. Gaza's largest Shifa hospital was overcrowded.
Taking the road to southern Gaza has become more difficult as several people who made the journey say Israel continues to bomb around it. — Reuters