LONDON: The remaining hospitals in southern Gaza were overwhelmed with casualties after Israeli soldiers opened fire on crowds trying to access an aid distribution center, British doctors working in the territory said.
Scores of Palestinians congregating to reach the food hub in Rafah have been shot dead in recent days.
The Red Cross said 27 people were killed and many more wounded on Tuesday when Israeli soldiers opened fire about one km from the aid center run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
On Sunday, at least 31 people were killed as they gathered at the same roundabout before heading to the aid center.
Dr. Iain Lennon, an emergency consultant volunteering at Al-Mawasi hospital in southern Gaza, told the BBC that all of the patients who arrived at the facility after the attack were suffering bullet wounds.
“We were woken up in the early hours of the morning by the team in the hospital,” Lennon said. “One of our partner organizations had declared a mass casualty incident and were overwhelmed, and we were taking patients both directly from the scene and from the other hospitals involved.”
“We’ve seen probably about 22 patients between 5 and 8 a.m. in the morning, two patients who we’ve had to take immediately to theater for immediate life saving surgery and a number of other patients with bullet wounds in limbs.”
He said the youngest victims were aged 15 or 16, and most of them were men who had walked the long distances to reach the aid hub.
“They were all injured by bullets, as far as we could see,” he added. “There was no sort of blast or shrapnel injuries, particularly at this event. Lots of people with wounds in, arms and legs, and a couple of people with more sort of central abdominal wounds.”
The Israel Defense Forces said its soldiers opened fire when “several suspects” deviated from the designated route toward the aid site.
“The troops carried out warning fire, and after the suspects failed to retreat, additional shots were directed near individual suspects who advanced toward the troops,” the military said.
Dr. Victoria Rose, a British surgeon, said that on Sunday, 28 bodies and more than 200 people with gunshot injuries arrived at the Nasser hospital where she is working.
“We went into a mass casualty scenario, so all of the theaters stopped operating and just started taking the emergency work from the emergency department,” she said in a video shared by Islamic Help charity. “It’s going to be very hard for us to deal with all of this now because we don’t really have the medical supplies or the reserves in the workforce to deal with a mass casualty of this kind.”
New aid distribution hubs have been set up after Israel blocked the UN from delivering aid to Gaza and cut off all supplies on March 2.
Deliveries resumed late last month but are being managed by the newly created Gaza Humanitarian Foundation.
The UN’s human rights chief, Volker Turk, said: “Deadly attacks on distraught civilians trying to access the paltry amounts of food aid in Gaza are unconscionable.”
He called for a “prompt and impartial” investigation into the killings.
