A young Palestinian walks through rubble in a heavily bombarded neighborhood following overnight Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp early on Monday.
Mahmud Hams /AFP via Getty Images
JERUSALEM – The pleas from inside Gaza for Israel’s relentless bombardments have plunged the densely populated areas into a humanitarian crisis.
The enclave now is under complete siege. Israel has cut off food, water, fuel and electricity in retaliation for the attack Hamas carried out in Israel’s southern towns. The territory’s main power plant ran out of fuel Wednesday, plunging Gaza’s 2.3 million residents into darkness.
Videos from inside Gaza show entire blocks reduced to rubble and children being pulled from the debris. Some 24 families have been wiped out since Saturday.
The infrastructure, already weakened by a 16-year blockade and four previous wars since 2008, is now being crushed. It’s something Palestinians say they’ve never seen before.
“The airstrikes are everywhere, the bombs are everywhere, the smell of death is everywhere,” said Wajeh Abu Zarefeh, a journalist in Gaza.
Last night he found himself stranded in the darkness outside the main hospital. Abu Zarefeh says it was too dark for people to move, and fuel is running out for transportation.
“We are trying to survive,” he said. “The Israeli attacks are at every inch of the Gaza Strip so there are no safe places, nowhere to escape and to run.”
The war was sparked by a surprise attack from Hamas that saw fighters flow into Israel on trucks and on paragliders. It has left at least 1300 people dead in one of the worst attacks in Israel’s history….
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