GAZA DEATH TOLL IN ISRAELI ATTACKS RISES TO 248 AMID DAUNTING REBUILDING TASK

Sat 22 May 2021:

The death toll from the Israeli attacks on the besieged Gaza Strip which ended after a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas has risen to 248, including 66 children and 39 women, the Palestinian Health Ministry said on Friday.

At least 1,948 people have been injured, the Palestinian Health Ministry said in a statement regarding the loss of lives in the 11-day attacks of Israel.

The search and rescue activities of the civil defense and medical teams in Gaza gained momentum following a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, a Palestinian resistance group, which took effect at 2 a.m. Friday (2300GMT Thursday).

The Egyptian-brokered truce came after 11 days of Israeli airstrikes on the blockaded Gaza Strip.

The Israeli military has staged airstrikes across the Gaza Strip since May 10, leaving behind a massive trail of destruction across the seaside territory.

Hundreds of homes destroyed

Tens of thousands of Palestinians were forced to take shelter in United Nations-run schools to escape the Israeli bombardment. For many families who began returning to their homes after the ceasefire came into effect in the early hours of Friday, there was little or nothing left of their homes.

About 1,000 individual homes have been completely destroyed, 700 have been severely damaged, and another 14,000 home units have been partially damaged.

There is a ratio of about more than six people per home in this town and in the Strip, that’s more than 80,000 people who have lost their homes or had their homes seriously or partially damaged. That is a major catastrophe for this community.

“People are still out on the streets trying to resume something approaching what was, even for Gaza, normal life before all of this took place,” Al Jazeera’s Harry Fawcett, reporting from Gaza City, said on Saturday morning. “But everywhere you go around here you see the evidence of what has taken place in the last few days,” he added, standing in front a row of bombed-out buildings.

“The electricity situation was at around 12 hours a day, which by the standards of recent years was actually pretty good for Gaza, but that has been stripped back to [up to] five hours a day,” he added, noting there were also major issues with water and desalination.

“Gaza’s 13 hospitals are very much under pressure not just from the sheer volume of patients but also shortage in fuel supply too.”

World Health Organization (WHO) spokeswoman Margaret Harris said Gaza’s health facilities were in danger of being overwhelmed by the thousands of injuries and called for immediate access into the besieged enclave for health supplies and personnel.

“The real challenges are the closures,” she told a virtual UN briefing.

Fabrizio Carboni, regional director of the International Committee of the Red Cross, echoed WHO’s call for urgent medical supplies, adding, “It will take years to rebuild – and even more to rebuild the fractured lives.”

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