Aid agencies call for a ceasefire in Gaza as power shortages in the area causes more people to be increasingly vulnerable, especially after the damages done to the Al Shifa Hospital. It has been reported that more children have been killed in Gaza since October 7’s attacks from Hamas than in any conflicts from around the world in the last four years (Al Jazeera, 2023).
Israel has stepped up their campaign on Gaza, in their attempt to wipe out Hamas. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced to the Israeli army last week that:
“We struck the enemy the harshest blow they have taken in a single day. We killed dozens of terrorists, possibly even more.”
Of those 700 ‘terrorists’ killed, were 305 children, 173 women, and 78 elderly (CNN, 2023). Since then, whole towns, hospitals, and mosques have been destroyed in the pandemonium of this battle in the Gaza Strip. The devastation is shown in the recent statistics from the Hamas-controlled Palestinian Ministry of Health. They have calculated the total death toll from the Israeli air strikes to be at least 5,087. Of that number were a harrowing 2,055 children (The Guardian, 2023). This number has since risen, according to NGO, and there has been an overwhelming 3,324 children dead since reports from 29 October (Al Jazeera, 2023).
More infants and injured and sick patients will be more vulnerable from the attack after Al Shifa Hospital, as the strikes damaged part of the building. With more attacks surely to come, there will be more victims of this war.
The UN Security Council’s António Guterres, on Tuesday last week after the Israeli bomb strike in Gaza, appealed for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” as the death toll reached its all-time high in the past twenty-four hours.
“Protecting civilians does not mean ordering more than one million people to evacuate to the south, where there is no shelter, no food, no water, no medicine and no fuel – and then continuing to bomb the south itself,” Guterres announced (The Guardian, 2023).
As of 30 October, sightings of Israeli tanks plowing further on to the North of the Gaza Strip have been reported. While the Israeli military has declined to comment on this sighting, footage of the tank shows it openfire on a car to destroy it, which was about to turn around. This is now what Israel has started to call the “second phase” of its war on Hamas in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas gunmen taking 200 hostages, and killing 1,400 people on 7 October. Since then over 8,000 people have been killed, and food and medicine are dangerously low for civilians in the Gaza Strip amid all the chaos (BBC News, 2023).
More and more atrocities are reported every day as the war continues on.
Edited by: Anwen Venn
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