6,546 Palestinians killed in Israeli strikes on Gaza
Reuters :
At least 6,546 Palestinians, including 2,704 children, were killed and 17,439 wounded in Israeli strikes since October 7, the health ministry in Hamas-controlled Gaza said on Wednesday.
In the past 24 hours, 756 Palestinians including 344 children were killed in Israeli strikes, the ministry said.
The ministry said “the massacres took place on the southern region of the Gaza strip.”
Talking about the health system, the ministry said the attacks targeted and damaged 57 institutions, and that 73 medical staff were killed and 25 ambulances were now out of service.
In the past 24 hours, 756 Palestinians including 344 children were killed in Israeli strikes, the ministry said, as per Reuters.
The ministry also stated that healthcare system at hospitals in the Gaza Strip has totally collapsed.
“Hospitals in Gaza have totally collapsed due to the Israeli war,” ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra told a news conference in Gaza City, as reported by Anadolu Agency.
He said 65 medics have been killed and 25 ambulances have been destroyed in Israeli strikes since October 7.
“Twelve hospitals and 32 healthcare centers were forced out of service,” al-Qudra said.
“We are afraid that many more will stop operations in the coming hours due to lack of fuel.”
With so many bodies, Palestinians in Gaza are burying the unidentified dead in mass graves, with a number instead of a name, residents say.
Now some families are using bracelets in the hope of finding their loved ones should they be killed.
The El-Daba family has tried to reduce the risk of being struck down during the heaviest-ever Israeli bombardment of Gaza.
Israel launched the air strikes after Hamas militants attacked Israeli towns on Oct. 7 in a rampage that killed 1,400 people and hostages were taken.
Ali El-Daba, 40, said he had seen bodies ripped apart by the bombing and were unrecognisable.
He said he decided to divide his family to prevent them from all dying in a single strike.
He said his wife Lina, 42, kept two of their sons and two daughters in Gaza City in the north and he moved to Khan Younis in the south with three other children.
El-Daba said he was preparing for the worst. He bought blue string bracelets for his family members and tied them around both wrists. “If something happens,” he said, “this way I will recognise them.”
Other Palestinian families were also buying or making bracelets for their children or writing their names on their arms.
Mass burials have been authorized by local Muslim clerics. Before burial, medics keep pictures and blood samples of the dead and give them numbers.
The Israeli military has told people to leave the north of the Gaza Strip, one of the most densely-populated places in the world, and head south because it is safer. But air strikes have hit across the Hamas-ruled enclave.
