Gaza hospital fills up, mainly with civilians

A missile hit their uncle's house, which was made of concrete and so, the Basal family had thought in taking refuge there, safer than their more flimsy one. Fida Basal, 20, was not there when the missile struck Sunday, the day after Israel began its ground invasion of Gaza. But her sister, Hanin, 18, was. A wounded boy was carried into Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on Sunday, where shortages of equipment were hampering care. Fida found Hanin at Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. One of Hanin's legs, her sister was told, had been amputated. "I want her leg now!" Fida screamed at her mother, blaming her for moving them to the concrete house. "God has no mercy! You get me her leg now!" Her uncle lost both legs. Another woman found only half of the body of her 17-year-old daughter in the Shifa morgue. "May God exterminate Hamas!" she screamed, in a curse rarely heard these days. In this conflict, many Palestinians praise Hamas as resisters, but Israel contends the group has purposely endangered civilians by fighting in and around populated areas. The scene on Sunday at the hospital, a singular and grisly reflection of the violence around it, was both harrowing and puzzling. A week ago, when Israel began its air assault, hundreds of Hamas militants were taken to the hospital. Yet on Sunday, the day Israeli troops flooded Gaza and ground battles with Hamas began, there appeared not to be a single one. The casualties at Shifa on Sunday–18 dead, hospital officials said, among a reported 30 around Gaza–were women, children and men who had been with children. One surgeon said that he had performed five amputations. "I don't know what kind of weapons Israel is using," said a nurse, Ziad Abd al Jawwad, 41, who had been working 24 hours without a break. "There is so much amputation." "It's so hard when you do it to women," he said, adding grimly that even the devastating 1967 war here was over in six days. For nine days now, doctors have been battling to keep Shifa running under the most adverse circumstances. Sanitation workers constantly mop up blood while Hamas security officers stand guard. But scant resources are being stretched to a breaking point, and a terrible stench is in the air. Dr. Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian who was allowed into Gaza last week to give emergency medical aid, and who has worked in many conflict zones, said the situation was the worst he had seen. The hospital lacked everything, he said: monitors, anesthesia, surgical equipment, heaters and spare parts. Israeli bombing nearby blew out windows, and like the rest of Gaza, here the severely limited fuel supplies were running low. Oved Yehezkel, the Israeli cabinet secretary, said Sunday that from the information at Israel's disposal, "there is no humanitarian crisis in Gaza." Many here would dispute that. With power lines down, much of Gaza has no electricity. There is a dire shortage of cooking gas. The Israeli government says it has allowed 10,000 tons of essential humanitarian aid, mainly food and medicine, to be delivered to Gaza throughout the past week, even as Hamas has fired its longer-range rockets into major cities in Israel's south. Among the donations were 2,000 units of blood from Jordan, five ambulances from Turkey and five transferred on behalf of the Palestinian Red Crescent Society from the West Bank. In recent days, most of those arriving at Shifa appeared to be civilians. On Sunday, there was no trace here of the dozens of Hamas fighters that the Israeli military said its ground forces had hit in the past few hours in exchanges of fire. The exact reason was not clear. Many ambulance drivers refused to go near the fighting. It also seemed possible that Hamas and Israeli fighters were still battling at some less lethal distance. It was difficult to know whether fighters were spread out at other hospitals. But at Shifa, most of the men who were wounded or killed seemed to have been hit along with relatives near their homes or on the road. Two young cousins and a 5-year-old boy from another family were killed by shrapnel as they played on the flat roofs of their apartment buildings. A woman who came to the hospital with a daughter, 15, who was wounded by shrapnel, said soldiers had taken over their house in Beit Lahiya, in the north, and had detained the men, who she said were farmers. The family said the daughter was wounded when Israeli forces fired on the upper floors of the house. The combat was not taking place inside Gaza City on Saturday night and Sunday but in areas like Beit Lahiya and east, closer to the Israeli border. At least five civilians in Gaza City were killed Sunday morning, however, when Israeli shells or rockets landed in the city's market, Palestinian medical officials said. An Israeli military spokesman said the circumstances were being checked. The Israeli Army has repeatedly emphasized that its operation is not aimed at Gaza's residents. But, sensitive to deep opposition worldwide to the toll on civilians, the military repeated in a statement on Sunday that "the Hamas terror organization operates amongst civilians, using them as human shields." Parts of Gaza, a narrow coastal strip with a population of 1.5 million, are among the most densely crowded areas in the world. Artillery and tank fire can easily cause collateral damage. Israel all but stopped firing tank and artillery shells into Gaza in November 2006 after 18 Palestinian civilians, most from one family, were killed by Israeli shells that missed their target and hit a row of houses in Beit Hanoun. Speaking by telephone on Sunday morning from her home in Shajaiya, near the border with Israel, Itidal Mushtaha, 58, said there was shelling all around. She, her four sons, their wives and 23 grandchildren had all huddled, terrified, on the ground floor with no electricity or water. The Israelis had destroyed many houses nearby that were identified as belonging to Hamas operatives, she said, adding, "We do not know where to hide." Yet Ms. Mushtaha, who is not usually a political woman, had nothing but praise for Hamas. "God bless these fighters. They are throwing themselves to death to protect us," she said. At Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, the body of Ahmad Abu Daf had been lying in the morgue for about two hours on Sunday when his relatives came to collect it. Mr. Abu Daf, 37, was hit and one of his children wounded by Israeli shrapnel outside their house in the Zeitoun district of Gaza City, the relatives said. As the relatives carried Mr. Abu Daf from the morgue on a stretcher to take him for burial, they suddenly started to shriek. Blood was trickling out of his mouth, and his hand seemed to shake as if he were alive. Four doctors raced out of the emergency room to tend to him. One of the men in the family yelled in anger at a doctor: "How could you keep him in this refrigerator for two hours?" The doctors checked. Hope flickered out. "Believe us, he's not alive," one said. "Just pray for him. There is nothing you can do."