Gaza’s sheer destruction; 1000 Palestinians killed

Palestinians walk on the rubble as they enter the northern district of Beit Hanoun to check their homes in the Gaza Strip during a humanitarian truce on July 26, 2014. (Photo: AFP – Mohammed Abed)

 

Al Akhbar:

“…the bodies of at least another 85 Palestinians were recovered from rubble across Gaza on Saturday, raising the overall Palestinian death toll in the 19-day Israeli terror campaign to 985, the overwhelming majority of them civilians.

Of the 85 bodies uncovered, 25 were from the northern areas of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya, and were taken to the Kamal Adwan hospital, and another 25 to Gaza City’s Shifa hospital from the eastern areas of al-Shujayeh and Zeitoun, Qudra said.

Thirteen bodies received from the central areas of Bureij, Deir al-Balah and Nusseirat were taken to the Al-Aqsa hospital, and another 13 to the European hospital in southern Gaza from the Khan Yunis and Rafah areas, he added.

The toll is expected to rise as bodies are pulled from the rubble of homes in some of the worst-hit parts of Gaza, in northern Beit Hanoun, eastern al-Shujayeh and Zeitoun, and southern Khan Younis.

In Beit Hanoun even the hospital was badly damaged by shelling, and AFP correspondents came across the charred body of a paramedic as emergency workers combed the debris for more dead….”

***

Jul 26, 2014, RT: massive bombing in Gaza minutes before 12hr ceasefire:

The Israeli military struck Gaza’s Shijaiyah neighborhood, leveling a building complex, approximately 20 minutes before the beginning of a 12-hour ceasefire.

***

RT: Over 1,000 dead in Gaza after Israel’s op, calls for ceasefire to be extended:

“Over 1,000 Palestinians have been killed since Israel started its military operation in Gaza, officials said. As the 12-hour ceasefire approaches its end and body recovery continues in the Strip, world leaders are calling for an extension to the truce.

The residents encountered widespread destruction in the northern town of Beit Hanoun.

“Nothing is left. Everything I have is gone,” a Palestinian woman from the town told AP.”

RT: Palestinians go their way past rubbles and a mini ferris wheel in the northern district of Beit Hanun in the Gaza Strip, during an humanitarian truce, on July 26, 2014. (AFP Photo / Marco Longari)

***

Ayman Mohyeldin

July 26, 2014 | “Shejaiya Cemetery, Gaza. Relatives frantically digging graves in an open lot being used as a cemetery. The stream of bodies was too fast for gravediggers to keep up with number of bodies being brought from nearby hospitals. The graves were being marked with cinder blocks from the rubble of nearby buildings destroyed by Israeli shelling. All that identifies where the dead are buried are the pieces of hand-written cardboard.”

[Similarly in Jan 2009, when, after bombing Fakhoura school and surrounding homes in Jabaliya, families of the martyred desperately tried to bury their loved ones, under the drones and F-16s, inevitably coming under tank shelling and running for their lives.]

Ayman Mohyeldin

July 26, 2014 | “Shifa Hospital Morgue, Gaza. Bodies on top of bodies next to bodies. In four hours, at least 81 bodies have been pulled from the rubble pushing the overall death toll to more than 1,000 Palestinians killed since the war began. The smell of decomposed bodies, some who had been rotting there for a week was suffocating making it almost impossible for anyone to breathe without a mask. Hospital workers were barely capable of identifying bodies and were issuing death certificates on the fly and for parents who wanted a cause of death, there was simply no time for proper autopsies meaning few if any will be able to pursue legal recourse against their relative’s killers. They had to choose between a full autopsy or laying their loved ones to rest in the few hours of a ceasefire. All of them chose to take their relatives for burial.”

Set of photos on FB showing the destruction of Shaja’iya