As daybreak broke on Thursday, Haitham Abu Ammar combed via the rubble of the college that had turn into a shelter to him and hundreds of different displaced Gazans. For hours, he helped folks piece collectively the limbs of those they liked.
“Essentially the most painful factor I’ve ever skilled was choosing up these items of flesh with my fingers,” mentioned Mr. Abu Ammar, a 27-year-old building employee. “I by no means thought I must do such a factor.”
Early on Thursday, Israeli airstrikes hit the college advanced, killing dozens of individuals — amongst them at the very least 9 militants, the Israeli navy mentioned.
Over the course of the day, corpses and mangled limbs recovered from the rubble have been wrapped in blankets, stacked in truck beds and pushed to Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital, the final main medical facility nonetheless working in central Gaza.
Israel’s navy described the airstrike as painstakingly deliberate. Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari instructed reporters that Israeli forces had tracked the militants within the school-turned-shelter for 3 days earlier than opening hearth.
“The Israeli navy and the Shin Wager discovered an answer to separate the terrorists from these looking for shelter,” he mentioned.
However accounts from each native and international medics, and a go to to the hospital by The New York Instances on Thursday afternoon, made clear that civilians died, too.
Exterior the hospital morgue, crowds gathered to weep and pray over the lifeless. Hospital corridors have been crowded with folks pleading for assist, or at the very least a little bit consolation.
A younger lady with a bloodied leg screamed, “Mama! Mama!”, as her sobbing mom adopted her via the hospital corridors.
The exact toll couldn’t be verified, however the Gaza Well being Ministry mentioned that of the roughly 40 folks killed within the assault, 14 have been youngsters and 9 have been ladies. Later within the day, The Related Press reported completely different numbers, saying at the very least 33 folks died, together with three ladies and 9 youngsters, citing the hospital morgue.
Al Aqsa Martyrs Hospital has turn into an emblem not simply of the heavy lack of life in central Gaza, but in addition of the rising sense of desperation amongst Gazans struggling to discover a place there that’s nonetheless protected.
Previously few weeks, the area has swelled with folks fleeing one other Israeli offensive, this one within the southern metropolis of Rafah. Earlier than that offensive started, Rafah was the primary place of refuge for civilians, at one level holding greater than half the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip.
Then on Wednesday, Israel introduced that it had began a brand new operation in opposition to Hamas militants in central Gaza — the very place the place many Gazans who had fled Rafah had ended up.
The strike on the college advanced got here early the subsequent day, round 2 a.m. It hit a constructing at a fancy run by UNRWA, the primary U.N. Palestinian help company in Gaza.
For the reason that Israeli offensive in Gaza started in October, in retaliation for a Hamas-led assault on Israel, such colleges have been used to shelter Gazans pressured from their houses by the combating. Israel says Hamas hides its forces in civilian settings like colleges or hospitals, an accusation the group denies.
Previously two days of the brand new navy marketing campaign, Al Aqsa took in 140 lifeless and lots of of wounded, well being staff mentioned.
“It’s full chaos, as a result of we now have mass casualty after mass casualty, however much less and fewer medical provides to deal with them,” mentioned Karin Huster, a nurse with the worldwide help group Medical doctors With out Borders who has been working on the hospital.
Through the go to to Al Aqsa by The Instances, medics might be seen pushing via crowds of panicked folks to attempt to attain working rooms, delayed by the sheer mass of individuals. Amid the confusion, Ms. Huster mentioned, medics generally introduced mortally wounded folks into working rooms, losing important time for many who nonetheless had an opportunity at survival.
Ms. Huster mentioned that almost all of individuals she had handled prior to now few days have been ladies and youngsters.
By early afternoon Thursday, after burying a good friend he pulled from the rubble of the college advanced, Mr. Abu Ammar discovered himself as soon as once more on the hospital.
This time, he was accompanied by the good friend’s brother, whom he was attempting to cram right into a hallway close to the doorway. The brother’s face was lower by shrapnel, and he had a deep gash in his proper leg.
However he was not the one one determined for assist.
Throughout them have been wounded folks, some mendacity in their very own blood on the ground, others on beds calling for assist. A person whose face was blackened with burns and dirt from the explosion that morning begged two family members who have been with him to fan his face with a chunk of cardboard they have been waving over him.
The scenes among the many lifeless within the morgue have been nearly as chaotic as these among the many residing. Our bodies lay in all places, as family members crowded in, weeping and screaming over them. The stench of blood was overpowering.
Crowds exterior the morgue ebbed and flowed as our bodies wrapped in blankets — shrouds have been briefly provide — have been lifted onto pickup vans to be taken for burial. Family members and associates lined as much as pray earlier than the lifeless have been pushed away. Even passers-by on the road stopped to affix in.
“When is it an excessive amount of?” Ms. Huster mentioned. “I don’t know anymore how I can phrase this in order that it shocks folks. The place has humanity gone unsuitable?”
