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Gaza Death Toll Reaches 213 as Israel Strikes Homes, Health Clinics and COVID-19 Testing Site

HeadlineMay 18, 2021

The death toll in Gaza has reached 213 as Israel continues to attack the besieged territory by air, land and sea using U.S.-made warplanes and U.S.-made bombs. Health officials in Gaza say the dead include 61 children and 36 women. Over 1,400 Palestinians have been injured. Another 58,000 are internally displaced and facing shortages of food, medicine and supplies.

On Sunday, 6-year-old Suzy Eshkuntana was pulled from the rubble of her Gaza City home after an airstrike killed her mother and all four of her siblings. Her father Riyad was the only other member of her family to survive.

Riyad Eshkuntana: “I ran to check up on the girls. My wife jumped. She hugged the girls and took them out of the room. Then a second airstrike hit the room. I could feel the ceilings were destroyed, and I was left under the rubble. The last moment I saw my wife, I saw that she threw herself on the floor, and the concrete fell on her head.”

An Israeli airstrike Monday damaged the office of Qatar’s Red Crescent. Another strike damaged the only COVID-19 testing laboratory in Gaza. A clinic run by Doctors Without Borders was hit by an Israeli strike on Sunday. The World Health Organization reports Israeli attacks have damaged at least 18 hospitals and clinics in Gaza.

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