The incomprehensible chaos of bodies

1) Letter from Dr. Mads Gilbert; 2) report on the ‘deadliest day’ by Dylan Collins, who also took the photos used in these two articles; 3) report and photos from +972.

A cameraman films the remains of a bombed-out ambulance in Shujaiyeh during a brief humanitarian ceasefire on Sunday afternoon.

Scores of maimed and dying Palestinians, all innocent

Letter from Dr. Mads Gilbert, the Norwegian surgeon in Gaza, forwarded by the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation.
July 21, 2014

Dearest friends –

The last night was extreme. The “ground invasion” of Gaza resulted in scores and carloads with maimed, torn apart, bleeding, shivering, dying – all sorts of injured Palestinians, all ages, all civilians, all innocent.

The heroes in the ambulances and in all of Gaza’s hospitals are working 12-24hrs shifts, grey from fatigue and inhuman workloads (without payment all in Shifa for the last 4 months), they care, triage, try to understand the incomprehensible chaos of bodies, sizes, limbs, walking, not walking, breathing, not breathing, bleeding, not bleeding humans. HUMANS!

Now, once more treated like animals by “the most moral army in the world” (sic!).

Norwegian doctor, Mads Gilbert, briefs journalists outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Sunday on the quickly growing humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

My respect for the wounded is endless, in their contained determination in the midst of pain, agony and shock; my admiration for the staff and volunteers is endless, my closeness to the Palestinian “sumud” gives me strength, although in glimpses I just want to scream, hold someone tight, cry, smell the skin and hair of the warm child, covered in blood, protect ourselves in an endless embrace – but we cannot afford that, nor can they.

Ashy grey faces – Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the Emergency Room, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out – oh – the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shovelling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes,cannulas – the leftovers from death – all taken away…to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs. enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here – almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors – all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterdays hospitals.But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormous resolute.

And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flow, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening!

An then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again, just now: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16, the sickening drones (Arabic ‘Zennanis’, the hummers), and the cluttering Apaches. So much made and paid in and by US.

Mr. Obama – do you have a heart? I invite you – spend one night – just one night – with us in Shifa. Disguised as a cleaner, maybe.

I am convinced, 100%, it would change history.

Nobody with a heart AND power could ever walk away from a night in Shifa without being determined to end the slaughter of the Palestinian people.

But the heartless and merciless have done their calculations and planned another “dahyia” onslaught on Gaza.

The rivers of blood will keep running the coming night. I can hear they have tuned their instruments of death.

Please. Do what you can. This, THIS cannot continue.
Mads

Gaza, Occupied Palestine

An elderly Palestinian woman arrives in Shujaiyeh during the brief ceasefire to find that her home has been destroyed.

Deadliest Day as Israel Intensifies Ground Offensive in Gaza

By Dylan Collins, Vice news
July 20, 2014

Just after dawn Sunday morning, thousands of residents streamed out of the Shujaiyeh neighborhood in Gaza City, fleeing Israel’s most intensive bombing campaign since Operation Protective Edge began 13 days ago.

More than 66 Palestinians were killed throughout the morning in the eastern Gaza City neighborhood, according to Palestinian medical sources, although the death toll is expected to rise as more bodies are uncovered from the rubble. News of what residents deem to be a “massacre” in Shujaiyeh came as the Israeli military lifted a gag order placed on the deaths of 13 soldiers, killed overnight in clashes with Palestinian militants throughout the Gaza Strip.

Bomb blasts and gunfire cackled throughout Shujaiyeh’s densely packed streets all morning, as residents fled from their homes towards the center of city, bringing with them what little they could carry.

Medical crews were unable to enter the neighborhood due to the intensity of the bombing until the Red Cross arranged for a brief, although quickly sullied “humanitarian ceasefire” to allow for the collection of the dead and injured. Israel blamed Hamas rocket fire for the collapse of the ceasefire.

Before the ceasefire began, residents told VICE News that bodies littered the streets. When members of the press were finally able to reach the area, the scene was horrific. The insides of buildings poured into streets cluttered with downed power lines, blown out ambulances, blood and broken glass. Residents rushed back into the neighborhood among the bullet-riddled buildings with gaping shell holes and masked gunmen to retrieve personal belongings.

“We know the Shujaiyeh neighborhood is Hamas’s primary stronghold in Gaza,” an IDF Spokesperson told VICE News, saying that approximately 10 percent of the rockets fired into Israel since hostilities began were launched from the area.

Al-Shifa hospital is attempting to operate well beyond its capacity. The morgue no longer has room to keep corpses cool. Family members are forced to step in between and around corpses to identify the bodies, often using a taxi to transport the dead to the graveyard.

Many of Shujaiyeh’s refugees headed straight for al-Shifa hospital, Gaza’s central medical complex, to reconnect with family members and to check on the injured and the dead. The hospital grounds quickly descended into chaos. Sirens blared as ambulances whizzed through the front roundabout to deliver bodies uncovered in the carnage and rubble that now makes up Gaza City’s eastern neighborhood.

With the morgue’s refrigerators at capacity, hospital staff was forced to line corpses along the bloodied floor among the swarms of mourning families who pressed into the cramped room to identify and collect their dead.

“Al-Shifa is over maximum capacity,” said Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert to a cluster of press next to an impromptu media tent set up alongside the hospital. “You can’t destroy a residential neighborhood row by row. This is what they [the Israeli army] are doing in Shujaiyeh. People from the neighborhood are coming back and telling us that there are tens of dead bodies laying in the streets. The ambulances simply can’t get there now,” he said, shortly before the ceasefire began.

“I’ve seen four bodies arrive to the hospital without a head. About 20 minutes ago, we received the first killed paramedic. Several minutes later, we received a dead journalist — wearing a flak jacket, press sign, helmet and all.”

Mohammad Suker arrived at al-Shifa hospital by foot around 7 AM with his wife, four children, and 20 members of his extended family. “We had to leave,” he told VICE News. “We’ve never seen bombing like that in Shujayieh — the entire neighborhood is destroyed. The bombing was constant, there wasn’t a silent moment all night. We thought things would calm down by morning. That’s the way it usually works, but that wasn’t the case this time. Things intensified.”

Standing amid a chaotic scene of displaced families, mourning relatives, Hamas security members and frantic doctors, Suker is at a loss for what to do. “Here we are with suitcases like it was in 1948, we’re repeating our misfortunes,” he said. “We have nothing and no place to go. I guess we’ll try to see if there is room in the schools, but we’ll see where they will send us.”

Suker plans on taking his family to local schools run by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an organization that focuses specifically on Palestinian refugees; however, he is unsure if there will be space. According to the latest number put out by spokesman Chris Gunness, more than 83,500 displaced Palestinians have taken refuge in 61 UNRWA shelters throughout the besieged strip. Families squeeze together in cramped classrooms. Fresh drinking water is hard to come by and sanitary bathrooms even more so.

“This is 100 percent man-made massacre, supported by the United States and Mr. Obama,” Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert argued, amid a wave of newly displaced residents who will soon be forced to squeeze in, along with tens of thousands of others, into the already overcrowded UNRWA facilities. “The Israeli army is fighting against people who have nothing to defend themselves and women and children bearing the brunt of it.”

Hospital workers at al-Shifa deal with the endless flow of dead bodies.

Scenes of devastation from deadliest day in Gaza

Israel bombards the Gaza City neighborhood of Shujaiyeh, killing at least 66, with the toll expected to rise.

Photos by Anne Paq and Basel Yazouri/Activestills.org, text by Noa Yachot, +972
July 20, 2014

Israel stepped up its air and ground offensive on the Gaza Strip on Sunday, resulting in the deadliest day since the assault began on July 8. A total of 87 Palestinians were reported dead, with the toll expected to rise. Thirteen Israeli soldiers were also killed Sunday while fighting inside Gaza.

A vast majority of the Palestinian deaths were in Shujaiyeh, a neighborhood in the east of Gaza City. Israeli artillery and air strikes pounded the neighborhood throughout the night and into Sunday, turning it into a scene of utter devastation, with entire buildings flattened and bodies strewn in the streets.

Gazans flee the Shejaiya area after Israeli tanks invaded the area, bombarding it heavily, causing over 60 casualties and hundreds wounded, July 20, 2014. (Basel Yazouri/Activestills.org)
Gazans flee Shujaiyeh after Israeli tanks invaded the area, bombarding it heavily, killing more than 60 people and wounding hundreds, July 20, 2014. (Anne Paq/Activestills.org)

Palestinian health officials said that at least 66 Palestinians were killed in Shujaiyeh, bringing the Palestinian death toll in the current round of fighting – billed by Israel “Operation Protective Edge” – to roughly 425, most of them civilians. A total of 18 Israeli soldiers have been killed, along with two Israeli civilians.

Among those killed in Shujaiyeh were at least 17 children, 14 women, and four elderly people. Those numbers could rise, as rescue teams could not safely complete the task of evacuating the dead and wounded.

Ambulances and civilians in Shujaiyeh, July 20, 2014.

Thousands of Shujaiyeh residents fled the area throughout Sunday. UNRWA reported Sunday evening that more than 80,000 Gazans had sought refugee in temporary shelters operated by the United Nations agency.

Gazans leave Shujaiyeh by whatever means they can after Israeli tanks invaded the area, July 20, 2014. As of Sunday, more than 80,000 Gazans were in temporary UN shelters.

The International Committee of the Red Cross negotiated a two-hour humanitarian ceasefire – applicable only to Shujaiyeh – to allow for the retrieval of the dead and the evacuation of the wounded and those trapped in the neighborhood. Shelling, however, continued during the lull, as Israel claimed its forces were shot at.

As a result, much of the rescue operation took place under fire. The ICRC later expressed concern for those trapped in the area, and said it was working to coordinate safe access to the area.

Israel initially said that its ground incursion, now on its fourth day, would be limited in nature, intended to destroy Hamas-built tunnels leading into Israel. However, Israeli forces have since penetrated deep into urban areas. A military official told Buzzfeed on Sunday that Israel was broadening the offensive “far beyond its original parameters” and that it could continue for “several weeks.”

Medics at the Shifa Hospital mourn their colleagues killed in Shujaiyeh, July 20, 2014. Two medics and one journalist were killed in the attack.