Unrelenting Israeli Strikes Could Cause ‘Grave Humanitarian Crisis’

The death toll in the Gaza Strip passed 815 as new strikes by Israel’s Netanyahu government killed more civilians and prompted the largest West Bank protests seen in decades, “Democracy Now!” reports.

In the program’s Friday report below, correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous describes his visit to a children’s hospital in northern Gaza that was damaged Thursday in an airstrike. Kouddous said: “If the cease-fire falls apart, then we can only imagine that an escalation of the ground offensive — that’s what Israel has declared — will be in the cards,” Kouddous says. “We are looking at a very grave humanitarian crisis.”

Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), comments on the destruction by shelling Thursday of a school used as a U.N. shelter. At least 16 people were killed and more than 200 were injured. (The U.N. has declined to directly accuse Israel, but says it gave the school’s coordinates to the Israeli military numerous times.) Gunness told reporters, “Within Gaza, there is no safe place. … If the parties to this conflict have shown themselves callous enough to be able to hit a clearly designated, clearly marked U.N. compound where hundreds of people have come to take sanctuary, we cannot guarantee anymore the safety of our installations.” He says 150,000 people are now seeking shelter amid the violence.

Amira Hass, a Ha’aretz correspondent for the Palestinian territories, talks from the West Bank about a 15,000-person march from Ramallah toward Jerusalem on Thursday in which two Palestinians were killed and more than 200 were wounded when Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition.

Dr. Belal Dabour of Shifa Hospital, the largest in Gaza, describes how doctors have struggled to treat thousands of victims amid frequent power cuts and outdated equipment since the military operation began July 8. He also discusses the hopes of his Gazan patients that the current conflict will bring an end to Israel’s eight-year siege. “After eight years, life has become intolerable,” he says. “People have no hope. They feel that the horizon for any prosperous future is [impossible] until the siege is lifted.”

‘Democracy Now!’:

— Adapted from “Democracy Now!” by Alexander Reed Kelly.