.
Mr. Obama -– do you have a heart?
Last night was extreme. The “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with bodies maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying -- all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.
The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12-24 hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment at all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS!
Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army in the world” (sic!).
My respect for the wounded is endless, in their contained determination in the midst of pain, agony and shock; my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless, my closeness to the Palestinian “sumud” gives me strength, although in glimpses I just want to scream, hold someone tight, cry, smell the skin and hair of the warm child, covered in blood, protect ourselves in an endless embrace –- but we cannot afford that, nor can they.
Ashy grey faces -- Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out -– oh -– the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes, cannulas –- the leftovers from death –- all taken away… to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs., enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here -– almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors -– all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterday's hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormously resolute.
And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flow, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening!
![]()
Dr Mads Gilbert with a patient at Shifa Hospital in Gaza: photo via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
And then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again, just now: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16s, the sickening drones (Arabic ‘Zennanis’, the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much of it made in and paid for by US.
Mr. Obama -– do you have a heart?
I invite you –- spend one night -– just one night –- with us in Shifa. Disguised as a cleaner, maybe.
I am convinced, 100%, it would change history.
Nobody with a heart AND power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.
But the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned another “dahyia” onslaught on Gaza.
The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.
Please. Do what you can. This, THIS cannot continue. MadsGaza, Occupied Palestine
Mads Gilbert MD PhD
Professor and Clinical Head
![]( "A medic with the Palestine Red Crescent Society carries an injured child to a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah following an Israeli air strike before a five-hour ceasefire went into effect on 17 July. (Photo: Eyad Al Baba / APA images)")
![news_article_7061_12866_1405957236]()
UNRWA Gaza situation report, 21 July 2014
![Death toll rises in Gaza]()
Palestinians who fled their houses following an Israeli ground offensive take shelter at a UNRWA school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, July 19, 2014: photo by Eyad Al Baba / APA Images, 19 July 2014
![1 of the at least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family killed in an airstrike last night. Still in diapers. Photo via @kristenchick]()
One of the at least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family killed in an airstrike last night. Still in diapers:photo via @kristenchick / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
![Photo via @MohannadArawi: Another terrorist killed by Israeli army in #Gaza]()
Another terrorist killed by Israeli army in Gaza: photo via MohannadArawi / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
![Horrible killing in #Gaza. Gazan corpses lied everywhere = Photo via @m_househ]()
Horrible killing in Gaza. Gazan corpses lying everywhere: photo via @m_househ / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
![At least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family were killed in an F-16 strike on their home in Khan Yunis last night - via @sharifkouddous]()
At least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family were killed in an F-16 strike on their home in Khan Yunis last night: photo via sharifkouddous / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
![Palestinian Beisan Dhahir, 7, sleeps at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, late Sunday, July 20, 2014. Beisan's home was shelled and collapsed by Israel¿s military...]()
Palestinian Beisan Dhahir, 7, sleeps at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, late Sunday, July 20, 2014. Beisan's home was shelled and collapsed by Israel's military operation in Shijaiyah in the Gaza Strip. She survived the ordeal with her aunt and uncle. Beisan's mother, father, brother, sister and baby sister all died in the attack. According to a family relative, the house came crashing down around 11:00 am local time. During a temporary ceasefire, an Associated Press team accompanied Palestinian Red Cross volunteers who managed to speak to the aunt who was trapped under the rubble of her home pleading for help for her husband and Beisan. By 6pm local time the volunteers were able to free the young girl and her aunt and uncle from the rubble, leaving behind the rest of her family: photo by Lefteris Pitarakis / AP, 20 July 2014
![Palestinian Beisan Dhahir, 7, sleeps at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, late Sunday, July 20, 2014. Beisan's home was shelled and collapsed by Israel¿s military...]()
Palestinian Beisan Dhahir, 7, sleeps at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, late Sunday, July 20, 2014: photo by Lefteris Pitarakis / AP, 20 July 2014
![The Associated Press]( "The Associated Press")
![]()
Smoke rose as Israeli tanks shelled the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military said that 10 Hamas fighters were killed Monday in Shejaiya, and that six underground tunnels had been “completely demolished” across Gaza in the past 24 hours: photo by Mohammed Saber / European Pressphoto Agency, 21 July 2014
![]()
Palestinian men buried the bodies of members of the Abu Jamei family, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Khan Younis in Gaza on Monday. At the family’s home, people searching beneath the rubble left by an overnight attack on Monday counted 26 bodies, by far the most victims of a single strike in this offensive: photo by Sergey Ponomarev / The New York Times. 21 July 2014
![]()
A wounded boy arrived at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. On the fifth day of the Israeli ground operation in Gaza, similarly chaotic scenes were repeated at overwhelmed hospitals across the strip, where medical supplies were already depleted and staff exhausted after 14 days of heavy aerial bombing now intensified by ground battles: photo by Tyler Hicks / The New York Times, 21 July 2014
![]()
People looked for bodies amid the debris of a destroyed house in Gaza City. As diplomatic pressure for a cease-fire mounted on the conflict’s 14th day, the Palestinian death toll topped 500 and the number of Israeli soldiers killed hit 25, more than twice as many as in Israel’s last Gaza ground operation in 2009. Two Israeli civilians have also died from rocket and mortar fire: photo by Wissam Nassar / The New York Times, 21 July 2014
![]()
Israeli soldiers fired 155-millimeter artillery rounds toward Gaza: photo by Menahem Kahana / Agence France-Presse, 21July 2014
![]()
An Israeli soldier monitored the area as smoke rose from Gaza near the Israeli border. Rocket fire from Gaza slowed somewhat from earlier days, but more than a dozen sirens sounded around midday. One rocket hit a home in Sderot, near Gaza, while the occupants cowered in a safe room, and another landed in an open field near Tel Aviv. photo by Abir Sultan / European Pressphoto Agency, 21 July 2014
Mr. Obama -– do you have a heart?
A letter from Dr. Mads Gilbert, a physician working in Gaza
Dearest friends --
Last night was extreme. The “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with bodies maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying -- all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.
The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12-24 hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment at all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS!
Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army in the world” (sic!).
My respect for the wounded is endless, in their contained determination in the midst of pain, agony and shock; my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless, my closeness to the Palestinian “sumud” gives me strength, although in glimpses I just want to scream, hold someone tight, cry, smell the skin and hair of the warm child, covered in blood, protect ourselves in an endless embrace –- but we cannot afford that, nor can they.
Ashy grey faces -- Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out -– oh -– the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes, cannulas –- the leftovers from death –- all taken away… to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs., enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here -– almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors -– all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterday's hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormously resolute.
And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flow, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening!
Dr Mads Gilbert with a patient at Shifa Hospital in Gaza: photo via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
And then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again, just now: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16s, the sickening drones (Arabic ‘Zennanis’, the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much of it made in and paid for by US.
Mr. Obama -– do you have a heart?
I invite you –- spend one night -– just one night –- with us in Shifa. Disguised as a cleaner, maybe.
I am convinced, 100%, it would change history.
Nobody with a heart AND power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.
But the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned another “dahyia” onslaught on Gaza.
The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.
Please. Do what you can. This, THIS cannot continue. MadsGaza, Occupied Palestine
Mads Gilbert MD PhD
Professor and Clinical Head
Clinic of Emergency Medicine
University Hospital of North Norway
A medic with the Palestine Red Crescent Society carries an injured child to a hospital in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah following an Israeli air strike before a five-hour ceasefire went into effect on 17 July. Four children were killed when Israel resumed its heavy bombardment of the occupied Gaza Strip after the expiry on Thursday afternoon of a five-hour "humanitarian ceasefire" requested by the United Nations: photo by Eyad Al Baba / APA Images, 17 July 2014
Palestinian refugee at UNRWA school in Gaza: photo via UNRWA, 21 July 2014
UNRWA Gaza situation report, 21 July 2014
The following situation report was issued by UNRWA today.
GAZA SITUATION REPORT (ISSUE NO. 13)
21 July 2014 | Issue No. 13
On 7 July, in response to escalating violence between Israel and Hamas, UNRWA declared an emergency in all five areas of the Gaza Strip. The number of displaced people has since gone beyond the peak number from the 2008/9 conflict, and exceeds 84,000 in 67 schools. UNRWA has launched an emergency flash appeal for US$ 60 million to respond to the urgent and pressing humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza, including the thousands who have already fled their homes to seek safety in UNRWA facilities.
GENERAL
Past 24 hours: The past 24 hours marked the deadliest period since the current escalations of violence began, with 107 Palestinians killed, including 23 women and 35 children. Tragically, the total number of children killed in the current conflict has now passed 100 and represents almost one quarter of all Palestinian fatalities. 13 Israeli soldiers were reportedly killed in this 24- hour period.
The densely populated Shejayeh area, in the Eastern part of Gaza City suffered the most extreme levels of violence during this period, with at least 72 Palestinians killed (38 men, 13 women and 21 children) in a major escalation of the IDF ground offensive. A brief humanitarian pause to evacuate the wounded and dead was only partially implemented, with rescuers reportedly unable to access some areas of Shejayeh to provide assistance. Scenes at Shifa Hospital following the escalation in Shejayeh have been widely reported, with hospital staff overwhelmed with mass casualties.
An expanded IDF ground offensive has resulted in an exponential increase in Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs); it is estimated that up to half of Shejayeh’s residents fled their homes in reported scenes of panic during this period. The number of displaced Palestinians in UNRWA shelters across the Gaza Strip climbed sharply from 63,000 on 20 July to 84,843 on 21 July. This sharp increase has presented significant challenges to UNRWA operations, with shelters overwhelmed with huge numbers of displaced.
The scope of displacement is expected to further increase, with a ground offensive in place in six areas of the Gaza Strip. In Beit Hanoun the ground offensive now reaches to 1000 meters inside Gazan territory. In Middle Area, leaflets were dropped by the IDF in Maghazi Camp overnight requesting residents to leave their homes, and raising concerns of a possible expansion of the ground offensive in that area.
The continuing conflict is having an impact on delivery of basic services. Despite strong commitment from UNRWA sanitation staff, the Agency is struggling to maintain solid waste management operations in the context of ongoing escalations in violence and high numbers of IDPs in shelters. This presents a potential serious public health risk.
The ongoing conflict also presents a major concern regarding the risk of Unexploded Ordnance (UXO), especially to children. UNRWA is providing basic UXO awareness in shelters and will delivering a more comprehensive awareness program once current hostilities cease.
“Gaza is an open wound”. This is how, speaking from Doha on 20 July, UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon described the current situation in Gaza. The Secretary- General condemned the killings of civilians, including children in Shejayeh as an “atrocious action” and called for an immediate end to the violence, stating that “too many innocent civilians are dying”. The Secretary- General’s statement was made during a late- night session of the UN Security Council, at which members reportedly expressed serious concern at rising casualty numbers and called for respect of international humanitarian law to be upheld. International pressure for an end to the conflict is continuing; with US Secretary of State John Kerry expected in Egypt discuss the crisis.
UNRWA RESPONSESUMMARY OF MAJOR INCIDENTS
- UNRWA is now providing shelter to more than 84,843 beneficiaries all five areas of the Gaza Strip. There are currently 67 designated emergency shelters, with more expected to open throughout the day. The priority continues to be the provision of food, water, sleeping and cleaning items.
- Over the past 24 hours, food and water rations were distributed to shelters. This includes 233 family hygiene kits, 168 baby hygiene kits, 6940 mattresses, 3191 blankets, 54,489 tins of tuna, and 16,512 50- piece packets of bread.
- Regular sanitation operations continue, with more than half of sanitation staff reporting for work, removing 136 tones of solid waste.
- Regular UNRWA operations are affected but continue as security permits. 15 of 21 health clinics remain operational, and regular UNRWA services are available. 4549 people visited UNRWA health clinics yesterday, including more than 300 children who had regular check-ups and/or immunizations. There were 174 visits to the dentist at UNRWA health clinics and 33 people had appointments with psychosocial counselors.
Reportedly, there were 101 rockets and 37 mortar shells fired towards Israel. IAF conducted 131 raids firing 182 missiles. Israeli navy fired 146 shells; and 721 tank shells were fired. 66 houses were bombarded.
UNRWA INSTALLATIONS
A total of 75 UNRWA installations have been damaged since 1 June, 2014.
In the past 24 hours, three UNRWA installations were damaged – one school in Bureij, a school in Nuseirat and the Microfinance Office in Middle Area.
FUNDING NEEDS
UNRWA has launched an emergency flash appeal for US$ 60 million to respond to the urgent and pressing humanitarian needs of the people of Gaza, including the thousands who have already fled their homes to seek safety in UNRWA facilities. New funding will enable UNRWA to respond to the immediate shelter, food, health and psychosocial needs of internally displaced persons (IDPs), while replenishing emergency supplies and preparing for vital interventions necessary after a cessation of military activities. The emergency response phase is expected to last for one month, and the early recovery a further three to six months.
Based on the escalating number of IDPs and further destruction of shelters, a revised appeal will be released shortly.
CROSSINGS
- Rafah crossing was open for foreign passport holders and wounded Palestinians.
- Erez was open only for foreigners and humanitarian medical cases.
- Kerem Shalom crossing was open for food and fuel.
Since this report was written, the situation has continued to deteriorate. According to UNRWA spokesperson Gunness:
Today saw a massive wave of human displacement in Gaza with around 20,000 displaced: 20k personal tragedies, 20 tales of dignity denied RT -- Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) 21 July 2014
Today saw a massive wave of human displacement in Gaza with around 20,000 displaced: 20k personal tragedies, 20 tales of dignity denied RT -- Chris Gunness (@ChrisGunness) 21 July 2014
Palestinians who fled their houses following an Israeli ground offensive take shelter at a UNRWA school in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, July 19, 2014: photo by Eyad Al Baba / APA Images, 19 July 2014
The Devastation
One of the at least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family killed in an airstrike last night. Still in diapers:photo via @kristenchick / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Another terrorist killed by Israeli army in Gaza: photo via MohannadArawi / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Horrible killing in Gaza. Gazan corpses lying everywhere: photo via @m_househ / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
At least 24 members of the Abu Jamaa family were killed in an F-16 strike on their home in Khan Yunis last night: photo via sharifkouddous / DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Remains of the bodies after attacks on residential buildings. Bodies shredded to pieces: photo by PalToday via DesertPeace, 21 July 2014
Palestinian Beisan Dhahir, 7, sleeps at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, late Sunday, July 20, 2014. Beisan's home was shelled and collapsed by Israel's military operation in Shijaiyah in the Gaza Strip. She survived the ordeal with her aunt and uncle. Beisan's mother, father, brother, sister and baby sister all died in the attack. According to a family relative, the house came crashing down around 11:00 am local time. During a temporary ceasefire, an Associated Press team accompanied Palestinian Red Cross volunteers who managed to speak to the aunt who was trapped under the rubble of her home pleading for help for her husband and Beisan. By 6pm local time the volunteers were able to free the young girl and her aunt and uncle from the rubble, leaving behind the rest of her family: photo by Lefteris Pitarakis / AP, 20 July 2014
Palestinian Beisan Dhahir, 7, sleeps at Shifa hospital in Gaza City, late Sunday, July 20, 2014: photo by Lefteris Pitarakis / AP, 20 July 2014
Palestinians search for survivors under the rubble of a house was destroyed by an Israeli missile strike, in Gaza City, Monday, July 21, 2014. On Sunday, the first major ground battle in two weeks of Israel-Hamas fighting exacted a steep price, killing scores of Palestinians and over a dozen Israeli soldiers and forcing thousands of terrified Palestinian civilians to flee their devastated Shijaiyah neighborhood, which Israel says is a major source for rocket fire against its civilians: photo by Khalil Hamra / AP, 21 July 2014)
Smoke rose as Israeli tanks shelled the eastern Gaza City neighborhood of Shejaiya. Lt. Col. Peter Lerner of the Israeli military said that 10 Hamas fighters were killed Monday in Shejaiya, and that six underground tunnels had been “completely demolished” across Gaza in the past 24 hours: photo by Mohammed Saber / European Pressphoto Agency, 21 July 2014
Palestinian men buried the bodies of members of the Abu Jamei family, who were killed in an Israeli airstrike in the southern town of Khan Younis in Gaza on Monday. At the family’s home, people searching beneath the rubble left by an overnight attack on Monday counted 26 bodies, by far the most victims of a single strike in this offensive: photo by Sergey Ponomarev / The New York Times. 21 July 2014
A wounded boy arrived at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. On the fifth day of the Israeli ground operation in Gaza, similarly chaotic scenes were repeated at overwhelmed hospitals across the strip, where medical supplies were already depleted and staff exhausted after 14 days of heavy aerial bombing now intensified by ground battles: photo by Tyler Hicks / The New York Times, 21 July 2014
People looked for bodies amid the debris of a destroyed house in Gaza City. As diplomatic pressure for a cease-fire mounted on the conflict’s 14th day, the Palestinian death toll topped 500 and the number of Israeli soldiers killed hit 25, more than twice as many as in Israel’s last Gaza ground operation in 2009. Two Israeli civilians have also died from rocket and mortar fire: photo by Wissam Nassar / The New York Times, 21 July 2014
Israeli soldiers fired 155-millimeter artillery rounds toward Gaza: photo by Menahem Kahana / Agence France-Presse, 21July 2014
An Israeli soldier monitored the area as smoke rose from Gaza near the Israeli border. Rocket fire from Gaza slowed somewhat from earlier days, but more than a dozen sirens sounded around midday. One rocket hit a home in Sderot, near Gaza, while the occupants cowered in a safe room, and another landed in an open field near Tel Aviv. photo by Abir Sultan / European Pressphoto Agency, 21 July 2014
"Kill them; kill them all; kill their children; kill their children's children; only when nothing more than a fading memory remains of them shall the blood of our land be clean."
-- a stand-up comedian