Palestinians say civilians paying the price in Israeli retaliation strikes on Gaza

(AP) — Hallways filled with screaming voices. A terrible stench in the air. Wounded people streaming through the doors. Lifeless bodies and bags of body parts arriving in bedsheets. The scene at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City was a grisly reflection of the chaos around it.

Even as workers mopped up blood and relatives rushed children with shrapnel wounds into surgery, explosions thundered in central Gaza City.

Over the last five days, Israeli warplanes have pummelled the blockaded strip with an intensity that its war-weary residents had never experienced.

The airstrikes have killed over 1,100 Palestinians, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. Officials have not said how many civilians are among the dead, but aid workers warn that Israel's decision to impose a “complete siege” on the crowded enclave of 2.3 million people is spawning a humanitarian catastrophe that touches nearly every one of them.

The airstrikes have transformed lively neighbourhoods into wastelands of rubble strewn with bodies. There is no clean water. And there is darkness — the territory's only power plant ran out of fuel Wednesday, leaving only generators that won't last long.

“This is an unprecedented scope of destruction,” said Miriam Marmur, a spokeswoman for Gisha, an Israeli human rights group. “Israeli decisions to cut electricity, fuel, food and medicine supplies severely compound the risks to Palestinians and threaten to greatly increase the toll in human life.”

The Israeli bombardment has escalated in retaliation for Hamas militants' unprecedented multifront attack Saturday. The Israeli military says more than 1,200 were killed and dozens more abducted, and the government declared war, promising a punishing campaign to destroy Hamas' military capabilities.

But Palestinians say Israel has largely unleashed that fury on civilians — a population that has lived for 16 years under a crippling blockade imposed by Israel and through four devastating wars and other hostilities.

The strikes across Gaza, from its farming villages on the northern border to upmarket towers in the heart of Gaza City, have killed 171 women and at least 326 people under 18, the Gaza Health Ministry said. Eight journalists have been killed, local media organisations said, and six medics, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent. The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees reports 11 of its staffers among the dead.

During past wars, news of a single shattered neighbourhood could shake the international community. This time, Israeli airstrikes are rapidly laying waste to vast swaths of Gaza, and casualties are mounting too fast for anyone to keep up.

“In previous escalations, there would always be some time, even a half-hour, without airstrikes,” said Nebal Farsakh, spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent. “But now, there is not a single minute. That's why the casualties keep going up and up.”

The stark toll is palpable at Gaza hospitals.

Even in ordinary times, they're poorly supplied. Now, there's a shortage of everything from bandages to intravenous fluids, beds to essential drugs, said Richard Brennan, regional director of the World Health Organization.

“It's almost as bad as it gets,” Brennan said. “It's not just the damage, the destruction. It's that psychological pressure. The constant shelling ... the loss of one's colleagues.”

An airstrike hit one of the territory's biggest hospitals, in northern Beit Hanoun, rendering it inoperable. Shrapnel has flown into seven other hospitals and 10 U.N. emergency shelters, according to the World Health Organization and United Nations.

At Shifa Hospital, doctors battled to keep the place running. Fuel supplies ran low, and panic ensued outside. As explosions crashed, women and children streamed into the streets with their belongings, some of them barefoot.

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