2023-10-23 14:04:51
Gazan parents are so terrified of losing their child that many identify them with a marker.
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In a Gaza hospital, the bodies of three children lie on a steel table inside the morgue. One leg of their pants pulled up to reveal writing on their skin.
“We observed cases where parents wrote their children’s names on the legs and abdomen,” Dr. Abdul Rahman Al Masri, head of the emergency department at Al Martyrs Hospital, told CNN. -Aqsa.
The latter claimed that parents fear that “anything might happen” and that they might not be able to identify them.
“This means they have the fear of being targeted at any time and may be injured or martyred,” Al Masri added.
The black ink is a small sign of the fear and despair felt by parents in this densely populated enclave as Israel continues to bombard it with relentless airstrikes in retaliation for the October 7 Hamas attacks.
The supervisor of the room at Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital where corpses are washed described Sunday as an “exceptional day.”
Speaking on condition of anonymity, he told CNN that the death toll overnight from Saturday to Sunday had exceeded 200, and echoed Dr Al Masri’s comments.
“What we noticed today is that many parents are writing their children’s names on their legs so they can identify them following airstrikes and if they get lost. This is a new phenomenon that has just started in Gaza.
“Many children have disappeared, many arrive here with broken skulls… and it is impossible to identify them, it is only thanks to these writings that they are identified.”
Over the past two weeks, hundreds of children have been pulled from the rubble of buildings destroyed by airstrikes in what is one of the most densely populated places in the world, many of them rendered unrecognizable at cause of their injuries.
As Israel continues its “complete siege” of the impoverished territory and essential supplies become dangerously depleted, doctors in Gaza hospitals have been forced to operate without painkillers, according to Doctors Without Borders.
Leo Cans, the group’s Jerusalem mission chief, told CNN on Monday that dwindling supplies meant surgeries were taking place “without the right dose of narcotics, without the right dose of morphine.”
“In terms of pain management, that doesn’t happen. We currently have people operated on without morphine. It just happened to two kids, Cans said. We have many children who are unfortunately among the injured, and I was discussing this with one of our surgeons, who yesterday received a 10-year-old child, burned on 60% of the surface of the body, and he did not no more painkillers.”
Cans insists that there is “no justification for preventing the population’s access to these essential medicines”.
He also acknowledged “terrible” reports that Gazan parents had resorted to writing their children’s names on their limbs in case they or their children were killed.
He said colleagues told him families sleep in the same room because “they want to live together or die together.”
Health workers have also begun to see the impact of fuel shortages. “Fuel is essential for water plants to desalinate water… If you don’t have fuel, you don’t have quality water,” Cans said, adding that many were now drinking l untreated water, leading to outbreaks of diarrhea.
Meanwhile, hospitals are also lacking medicine, water and electricity, while hundreds of injured Palestinians continue to seek care, doctors and health workers in Gaza told CNN.
More than 300 people sought help at Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital in Deir el-Balah, Gaza, following Israel dropped bombs nearby on Saturday evening and Sunday, Dr Iyad said Issa Abu Zaher, general director of the hospital.
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