CONFLICT
Dood en verderf in de Gazastrook
November 20, 2023 - Thirty-one premature babies were evacuated from Gaza’s Al-Shifa Hospital Sunday by the World Health Organization (WHO), Palestine Red Crescent and partners, seeking to get the last patients and staff out of what the WHO has dubbed a “death zone.”
According to the Palestinian news agency WAFA, the death toll from fighting between Israeli troops and Hamas militants in the Palestinian territory has passed 13,000 since the war began on October 7.
Agence France Presse quoted Hamas estimates that more than 5,500 children were among the dead, alongside 3,500 women, with 30,000 more people wounded.
“This war is having a staggering and unacceptable number of civilian casualties, including women and children, every day,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a statement on Sunday.
An estimated 1.7 million of the Gaza Strip’s population of 2.3 million have been made homeless by the war -- many have been following Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) warnings to move south.
On Thursday (November 16) in the southern Gaza city of Khan Younis -- where the population has swelled from 400,000 to 1.2 million -- the IDF dropped leaflets demanding residents go to unspecified “recognized shelters.”
Two days later, Israeli missiles hit a residential building in the city, killing 26 people.
“Irrespective of warnings, Israel is obliged to protect civilians wherever they are,” Volker Türk, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said Sunday.
- Hamas Government Says Gaza War Death Toll Reaches 13,000 (AFP/Barrons)
- ‘This must stop,’ UN chief says as deaths, displacement ripple across Gaza (ReliefWeb)
- Gaza war inflicts catastrophic damage on infrastructure and economy (Reuters)
- More civilian casualties amid nonstop Israeli bombardment in Gaza (WAFA)