Overnight Israel punished the town of Rafah, 30 kilometres south of Gaza, relentlessly. It’s where the Israeli soldier Hadar Goldin went missing on Friday after an ambush by Hamas forces.
In the past 24 hours, more than 60 people have died there, according to the health ministry. The only acute hospital was evacuated after a shell hit the entrance of its emergency room.
At the Shifa hospital in Gaza City doctors are struggling.
Everywhere you go people have built tents out of sheets and wood; I saw a cheeky kid rig the drips from the hospital’s air-conditioning vent into what I’m hoping is a fresh water supply, using a piece of plastic coving he’d scavenged from a skip.
Doctors here are struggling not just with emergencies, but with a backlog of essential operations. I met Anas Al-Borsh, a law student, whose leg was ripped by shrapnel during an F16 strike on a nearby house. The bone is exposed and he’s been waiting for treatment for eight days.
The full article continues at http://blogs.channel4.com/paul-mason-blog/gaza-health-crisis-looms-trapped-civilians/2024 on Channel 4’s website.