Health officials in Gaza say Israel’s unrelenting bombardment of the besieged Palestinian territory has killed another 700 people over the past 24 hours, bringing the death toll over the past 18 days to about 5,800. More than 2,000 children are among the dead. One-point-four million Gazans — or more than half of the territory’s population — have been displaced. The U.N. reports ِat least 42% of Gaza’s housing units are damaged or destroyed.
In northern Gaza, the Indonesian Hospital ran out of fuel Monday and suffered a power outage that brought life-saving medical equipment offline before officials restored power. Gaza’s Health Ministry says it will run out of fuel for electric generators at other hospitals within the next 48 hours. It reports 32 of Gaza’s health centers are out of service. Elsewhere, officials at al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City say the building’s entrance and surrounding areas were targeted today in an Israeli airstrike.
Meanwhile a convoy of trucks carrying humanitarian aid remains stalled on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing into Gaza. So far Israel has allowed fewer than 100 trucks into Gaza, which aid groups call a “drop in the ocean” of what’s needed to provide for Gaza’s 2.3 million people. A spokesperson for the World Food Programme says a critical shortage of fuel is preventing bakeries in Gaza from producing bread.
Ali Zaki: “They do not have enough power to get the machines working. And unfortunately, some were also hit. And so, with this, you know, the collapse of essential infrastructure, the lack of fuel to make sure that the machines are running, it’s really making a situation that is already catastrophic worse.”