By Nidal al-Mughrabi and Olivia Le Poidevin
CAIRO/GENEVA (Reuters) – Israel’s sudden onslaught of air strikes overnight overwhelmed Gaza hospitals already reeling from weeks of an aid blockade, medics and health authorities said on Tuesday, as ambulances ferried in hundreds of badly injured survivors.
Video obtained by Reuters showed rescue workers running with stretchers across smoking debris, ambulances rushing to hospitals, a morgue full of bloodied bodies in white bags, and casualties lying outside while relatives mourned the dead.
“We received no less than 400 cases in less than two hours,” said Mohammad Qishta, a Medicins Sans Frontieres emergency doctor working at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
“There were some serious cases such as burns … third degree burns on the face, amputations, wounds on the head, wounds on the chest,” he said.
Gaza health authorities issued an urgent statement on Tuesday asking residents to donate blood, saying stocks of different blood types had been exhausted.
Gaza’s health system was devastated by Israel’s 15-month military campaign, launched in response to the October 7 attack by Hamas in 2023, putting many of the territory’s hospitals out of action, killing medics and reducing crucial supplies.
Although a ceasefire came into effect in January, talks to transition to a second phase of the agreement stalled in February. Israel announced it was cutting off all aid, including medical supplies, into Gaza on March 2 over a dispute with Hamas on the next phase of the deal.
“The entry of all goods and supplies to the Gaza Strip will be halted,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said at the time.
Tuesday morning’s airstrikes, which Palestinian health authorities said killed more than 400 people, took place across the tiny, crowded Gaza Strip where the war has left most people homeless.
Israel said it was resuming airstrikes in response to Hamas’ rejection of its proposals for extending the ceasefire.
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The World Health Organization spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said 20 of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remained partially functional. However, far fewer were still able to handle surgery, aid agencies said. Gaza Health Ministry spokesman Khalil Al-Deqran said only seven of the territory’s hospitals were still providing services.
Jasarevic said the shortage of medicines meant even in working hospitals medics might not be able to provide treatment.
“The occupation did not allow the entry of medical equipment, devices and very necessary medical consumables to maintain what remains of the health system and functioning hospitals,” Gaza hospitals director Mohammed Zaqout said.
The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies, which works with rescue and health services in Gaza, said its team in the territory had reported on Tuesday that medical facilities were overwhelmed.
“The situation is rapidly deteriorating, even before the recent developments, because since the beginning of March we didn’t get any other aid, any other medicine,” the federation’s spokesperson Tommaso Della Longa said.
Even reaching casualties is more difficult because of damage to ambulances and a lack of fuel, said Shaina Low of the Norwegian Refugee Council, which is suspending most operations in Gaza because of the danger from strikes.
“We’ve already seen the suspension of 20 ambulances in Gaza because of lack of petrol. We’re going to see hospitals shutting down,” she added.
(Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Olivia Le Poidevin and Emma Farge; Writing by Angus McDowall; Editing by Alison Williams)
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