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<\/p>\n
Speaking from the war-shattered enclave amid the ongoing Israeli military push to take full control of Gaza City, UNICEF spokesperson James Elder described one short visit to a hospital where youngsters were either suffering or dying everywhere he looked.<\/p>\n
\nAs we’re talking to the surgeon there, she dies on the bed in front of us<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n
One victim at Al Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah, central Gaza, was six-year-old Aya, injured by an airstrike. \u201cI’m really noticing not just the wound, but the attention that the bobs in her hair, the care that a parent’s given before the airstrike,\u201d he said. \u201cAs we’re talking to the surgeon there, she dies on the bed in front of us. That’s 30 minutes in a hospital.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
No space to move<\/strong><\/h2>\n
At the same hospital, Mr. Elder reported seeing three children \u201call shot by quadcopters\u201d \u2013 an attack drone with four propellers \u2013 amid continuing reports that people continue to be injured while seeking aid from controversial non-UN relief distribution hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF).<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a war zone, children on the floor, there’s a boy who’d been shot at GHF who was bleeding out on the floor<\/strong>\u201d\u00a0<\/strong>with others\u00a0<\/strong>wounded by shooting, shrapnel or burns.<\/p>\n
The UNICEF spokesperson underscored reports that 1,000 infants have been killed in the last two years in Gaza since Hamas-led terror attacks in Israel triggered the war. \u201cWe have no idea how many more have died from preventable illnesses<\/strong>,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n
With only around 14 of Gaza\u2019s 36 hospitals still open and partially functional after almost two years of war, they are often \u201cabsolutely packed\u201d with people needing help, Mr. Elder stressed.<\/p>\n
Rescued, terrified<\/strong><\/h2>\n
\u201cI turn around and there’s a little girl, Sham, who has just been pulled from the rubble; so, she’s covered in that dust and smoke with that terrified expression on her face, being held by an aunt or an uncle\u2026 Now Sham didn’t have any broken bones nor internal injury, [she] was not told though, that her mother and her sister were both killed in that attack.\u201d<\/p>\n
Turning to Gaza City, the veteran UN aid worker stressed that many thousands of people remain there unable to leave, amid continuing Israeli evacuation orders airstrikes that have left children \u201cshuddering\u201d and gazing skywards \u201cto track the fire\u201d from helicopters and quadcopters.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou’ve got shoeless children who push grandparents around the rubble, amputee children are struggling through the dust, mothers are carrying exhausted children \u2013 literally their skin is bleeding because of the severity of rashes<\/strong>,\u201d Mr. Elder continued, before warning about \u201ccontinued indiscriminate attacks in densely populated civilian areas despite official statements\u201d.<\/p>\n
Another aid worker killed<\/strong><\/h2>\n
On Thursday, the NGO M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res (MSF) confirmed the killing in Gaza of its fourteenth medical worker, occupational therapist Omar Hayek, in an attack that also injured four of his colleagues in Deir Al-Balah.<\/p>\n
Until 13 September he had worked at an MSF clinic in Gaza City before finally evacuating amid \u201crelentless attacks and forced displacement from Israeli forces\u201d, the NGO maintained.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople are scared and rightly so\u2026\u201cIf you ask me now, can we do our work? I say no, of course we cannot do our work in the north,\u201d said Dr Rik Peeperkorn, UN World Health Organization (WHO) Representative in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.<\/p>\n
The level of violence in Gaza is such that nowhere is safe, including field hospitals, which offer no protection from stray bullets, said Christian Cardon from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).<\/p>\n