On Tuesday afternoon, rescuers combed with their hands through surface layers of a tangled mass of concrete and steel, which hours earlier had been homes in the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza.
They were searching for survivors, or the bodies of victims, which the immense force of an Israeli airstrike had left near the surface. Those trapped deeper may be entombed for months.
After more than three weeks of intense bombardment of Gaza, heavy machinery can no longer reach bomb sites down damaged roads, and people on the ground say fuel to operate machines is running out.
Even so, body bags piled up with horrific speed at the morgue of the nearby Indonesian hospital in Beit Lahia, and then outside the building. The wounded filled its beds or were raced to Dar al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, where medics from the Médicins Sans Frontiers aid group struggled to find space even for badly injured children.
“Young children arrived at the hospital with deep wounds and severe burns. They came without their families,” said Mohammed Hawajreh, an MSF nurse who was quoted by the organisation in a statement condemning the attack.
Gaza’s health ministry has updated its death toll since the conflict broke out on October 7, to 9,061, including 3,760 children and 2,326 women.
Please, please do not be desensitized to the numbers. Please don’t look away! Palestinians do not even have the privilege look away! Do not stop protesting, do not stop demanding for a ceasefire, do not stop donating esims or money or humanitarian aid, do not stop looking ways for help, do not stop talking about Palestine!
