Israel said its troops have entered Gaza’s second-largest city, while intensive bombardment has sent streams of ambulances and cars racing to hospitals with wounded and dead Palestinians. Here, Sky News’ chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay looks at the effects of a bloody new phase of the war.
It’s hard to believe but it’s actually getting worse in Gaza as every hour passes. The latest pictures from inside hospitals and on the streets are quite extraordinary. Israel says it’s clearing out the north and the south of the strip in two simultaneous operations to take down Hamas.
But the effect their campaign is having on the civilian population is brutal to see.
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Hospitals are overwhelmed, they ran out of beds long ago, now they’re running out of space on the floors as they struggle to keep men, women, and a lot of children alive.
The pictures from our team inside Gaza show medical staff struggling to deal with the sheer volume of injuries that pass through their doors in a near-constant stream.
In the north of Gaza people are crammed into the compound of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, seeking safety.
Beyond the walls, they film as the sounds of huge explosions reverberate through the tents of the displaced. On the street, people out looking for supplies start running as fighting breaks out a short distance away. They too start heading to the hospital desperate to get inside for the protection they hope it will afford them.
One woman, holding her sleeping little boy, his face a mess of cuts after their street was hit by an Israeli bomb, told the team she had only just arrived at the hospital. Her son will be two years old in two days.
She couldn’t stay at her home anymore. “Everyone left, they were continuously shelling us last night, we had just arrived and were about to go to sleep, then everything started,” she said. “People were hit all around us, everything was destroyed. Look at what happened to him, this child. What has this child done? Is he carrying any weapons?”
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Outside the hospital, a man covered in dust was asked why he was staying at the hospital. “Because we cannot find anything to protect us, that is why. We only have our God to protect us before anything,” he said. “We are saying we do not need anything, all we want is to live with our family, children and our loved ones and also the whole world to live in peace and safety, no one listens to us, no one hears us, no Arabs, no foreigners, no one. What do they want from us?”
Other pictures from inside Gaza show desperate scenes of chaos.
At the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the south of the strip, they’re treating people on the floor – it’s covered in blood.
Children, men, women; the young and old. Injured from airstrikes on homes and schools. In many cases they lie on the floor, clinging on to life.
One of the injured, a small boy, is holding onto a purple sweet.
He’s being treated on the floor, and he’s alone. There really isn’t much that can be done for these patients. It’s not hopeless only because the staff keep going regardless of the odds of keeping many of them alive.
Incredibly the situation is actually getting worse. It’s hard to imagine. But it is.
The United States among other nations has told Israel too many civilians are being injured and killed in their campaign against Hamas.
Israel says it’s moving into the next phase of its campaign, and that its fight against Hamas continues.
The people of Gaza are stuck in the middle of a brutal war.