Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) is horrified by Israel’s renewed military bombardment on Gaza, which has collapsed the fragile ceasefire and killed at least 413 Palestinians overnight, including many children, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health. The true toll is likely higher, with many still trapped beneath the rubble of destroyed buildings.
This return to Israel’s atrocities in Gaza comes two months after a temporary ceasefire was reached. However, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the Israeli military has killed at least 150 Palestinians in Gaza since 19 January – an average of three deaths per day – demonstrating that the killing never stopped. Now, Israel has directly collapsed this fragile ceasefire in the most deadly fashion, plunging Palestinians back into an unrelenting assault.
In addition to heavy airstrikes across Gaza, the Israeli military has issued new forced displacement orders for eastern areas, demanding residents flee from their homes and shelters once more. Israel’s total siege of aid to Gaza, an act of illegal collective punishment which has now entered its third week, continues to prevent the entry of food, water, and medical supplies, leaving people on the brink of starvation. Gaza’s health system, which has been systematically destroyed by the Israeli military since October 2023, lacks essential supplies and cannot provide adequate care to the many hundreds of injured people.
Fikr Shalltoot, MAP’s Gaza Director, said: “For a brief moment, Palestinians in Gaza could breathe, mourn, and return to what remained of their homes. Now, they are being forced to relive the horror all over again. The scale of killing and destruction overnight is beyond comprehension. Hospitals are overwhelmed, medical supplies are rapidly running out, and people are once again being displaced with nowhere safe to go. The world must not stand by as Palestinians endure Israel’s atrocities once again.”
Dr Tanya Haj-Hassan, a volunteer with MAP’s Emergency Medical Team at Nasser Hospital, said: “It’s nuts here, we woke up to an airstrike frenzy. The windows were shaking, the doors flew open, it was non-stop and then within about 10 minutes we started hearing the sirens. The patients have been flowing in ever since. I’m in the paediatric intensive care unit where we usually don’t care for trauma cases, but there are so many paediatric trauma cases that all the paediatric intensive care unit beds are full now.
“There are a lot of trauma cases. I personally unfortunately cared for at least four or five patients that died in the emergency department. I heard that within the first couple of hours that at least 76 bodies were taken straight to the mortuary, so they didn’t even make it through emergency room (ER) door. But the ER was just chaos with patients everywhere on the floor. There were probably three men and the rest were all children, women, elderly, everybody caught in their sleep, still wrapped in blankets. It’s a level of horror and evil that it’s really hard to articulate. It felt like Armageddon.”
Since the start of Israel’s war on Palestinians in Gaza more than 17 months ago, Israeli forces have killed at least 48,577 Palestinians and injured 112,041.
Israel’s cynical collapse of the temporary ceasefire, and its widespread attacks on civilian homes enabled by chronic impunity, must be immediately condemned. MAP calls for the international community, including the UK government, to urgently enforce an immediate and permanent ceasefire, an end to all arms sales to Israel, and full accountability for violations of international humanitarian law. The UK must not be an ally to Israel’s atrocities.
MAP’s team in Gaza remains committed to delivering lifesaving medical assistance to those in need with what they have available. Working with local and international partners, our 10 medical points across Gaza continue to operate and provide primary healthcare services to Palestinians.