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Mourning no longer wants to leave the Gaza Strip. Yet another deadly attack by the Zionist occupation army has shaken the Palestinian enclave. This Tuesday evening, at least 29 Palestinian civilians were killed in an airstrike that targeted the Al-Awda school in Abasan, east of Khan Younis, south of Gaza. According to medical sources, this attack also injured dozens.
Since the beginning of last October, the Israeli occupation forces, which are carrying out an unprecedented aggression in the Gaza Strip, have committed hundreds of massacres resulting in numerous civilian casualties. Last Saturday, another strike on an UNRWA school had already left 16 dead and 50 injured.
Hamas, the main Palestinian resistance movement, denounced a “terrible massacre” and “the continuation of the crime of genocide” that the Israeli army has been carrying out against the Palestinian people for almost ten months now.
This latest tragedy comes at a time when the humanitarian situation in the Gaza Strip is already extremely worrying. Last Monday, UNRWA announced that nearly 300,000 students in the Gaza Strip had been out of school for 9 months due to the violence. Civilian infrastructure, already weakened by the Israeli blockade, is increasingly damaged, worsening the already very difficult living conditions for the population.
According to the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, the Zionist entity has bombed two-thirds of the agency’s schools since the start of its aggression against the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.
Two-thirds of UNRWA schools bombed
“Since the beginning of the Zionist aggression, two-thirds of UNRWA schools in Gaza have been hit by the Zionist army, some have been bombed and many have been seriously damaged,” Mr. Lazzarini wrote in a message on the X platform, noting that “four schools have been hit in the last four days.”
The UNRWA chief stressed in this regard that “schools in Gaza have gone from being safe places of education and hope for children to overcrowded refuges and often end up becoming places of death and misery.”
And to deplore that “nine months later (after the start of the Zionist aggression), before our eyes, the incessant and endless killings, destruction and despair continue.”
Before warning: “Gaza is no place for children”, affirming that “flagrant disregard for international humanitarian law cannot become the new norm”.
He finally called for an “immediate ceasefire before we lose what remains of common humanity.”
For its part, the Palestinian Red Crescent said yesterday that its teams in the operating rooms were receiving dozens of humanitarian distress calls from Gaza City, without its ambulances being able to reach them, due to the intensity of the bombardments by the Zionist occupation army.
Palestinian Red Crescent ‘out of service’
Quoted by the Wafa news agency, the Red Crescent affirmed that field reports from the Gaza governorate all affirm that the living conditions of the population are extremely tragic and the occupation forces continue to target residential areas and strive to displace citizens from their places of residence and shelters.
In this regard, he denounced the bombing the day before yesterday evening by the occupation army of a school sheltering displaced persons in the city of Khan Younis, south of the Gaza Strip, causing at least 29 martyrs and more than 53 injured, including serious and critical cases.
As a reminder, the Palestinian Red Crescent announced the same day that all its medical centers in Gaza were out of service due to evacuation orders from the Zionist occupation forces in many neighborhoods of the city.
In a statement, it said that “all of its medical centers and emergency clinics in the Gaza governorate were out of service, due to the forced evacuations imposed by the occupation in various areas of the (Gaza) governorate where these medical centers and clinics are located.”
Palestinians have nowhere else to turn
Furthermore, and despite all these massacres, the occupation army issued new evacuation orders for the residents of Gaza City the day before yesterday. The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights yesterday expressed its dismay at the issuance of new evacuation orders, stressing that Palestinians no longer have anywhere else to turn.
The UN body said that Zionist forces “ordered civilians in the central areas of Gaza City, including the Al-Tuffah and Al-Daraj areas, to immediately evacuate the area west of the city,” while asserting that Zionist forces “intensified their strikes south and west of Gaza City, targeting the same areas to which they had ordered residents to move.”
The High Commission has repeatedly expressed concern about evacuation orders issued by Zionist forces, saying that “these orders are often confusing because people have moved to areas where military operations are taking place.”
For its part, the World Health Organization (WHO) has sounded the alarm over a worsening of the health crisis in the Gaza Strip, following new evacuation orders from the city emanating from the Zionist occupation forces, media reported.
Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General, stressed the serious impact of these orders on already limited health services in the region.
“There is truly no safe place in Gaza,” he said in a statement, adding that “the latest news of evacuation orders from Gaza City will further hamper the already severely limited provision of life-saving medical care.”
WHO has reported that key hospitals are out of service. Patients in these hospitals have been forced to evacuate on their own, have been given early discharge, or have been transferred to other health facilities.
Kamal Adwan and Indonesian hospitals, which are now treating these patients, are facing severe shortages of fuel, beds and trauma medical equipment.
The Indonesian hospital is currently operating at triple capacity, struggling to cope with the influx of patients.
Al-Helou Hospital, located in the blocks affected by the evacuation order, continues to operate, but partially.
As for As-Sahaba and Al-Shifa hospitals, located near the evacuation zones, they remain functional for the time being, although their status is precarious due to their proximity to the conflict zones.
In addition, six medical centers and two first aid centers are located in the evacuation zones, further straining the medical infrastructure in the besieged Palestinian territory.
Dr. Ghebreyesus warned that these essential medical facilities could quickly become unusable, due to Zionist aggression or obstacles to access.
WHO has called for a ceasefire so that medical aid can reach those in dire need and the injured can receive appropriate care.