Gaza war leaves 250,000 Palestinians displaced

Thousands of Gaza residents lost their homes after Israeli attacks in recent weeks.

Around 250,000 of Gaza's 1.8 million residents have been displaced, while some 65,000 have lost their home in the fighting, according to UN figures.

Some 80 families perished in the Israel war on Gaza, which began on July 8. The aggression has so far claimed the lives of some 1,940 Palestinians, including 470 children. Nearly 10,000 others have been injured in the military aggression.

The displaced Palestinians have accused international aid agencies operating in Gaza of playing into the hands of Israel.

“The UN has failed to address our most basic needs. We don’t have enough food or clean water and most of our children and pregnant women are sick. My wife and I have six kids and the UN has only provided us with one mattress. There is premeditated negligence on the part of the UN and the international community,” Rafat Ghasem, a displaced Palestinian, said.

“Heavy bombing targeted our incomplete house at night so we took refuge in the lower floor of the building when the F16 jets joined the tanks in bombing our house. We decided to flee to the nearby town of Beit Hanoun. We saw refugees inside Beit Hanoun hospital, but it was shelled and people were killed,” Shadi Sahwheel, a displaced Gaza resident, said.

Gaza's 25 hospitals have a total of 2,047 beds, or 1.3 beds per 1,000 people, among the lowest ratios in the world, according to United Nations figures. Nearly a third of the hospitals have been damaged in the fighting, according to UNRWA, the UN agency that looks after Palestinian refugees.

The thousands discharged patients — many with severe wounds patched together temporarily — are then left to the care of already devastated families who are grieving for dead loved ones and struggling to get by in the devastation of the war.

NTJ/MB