Friday night, Red Crescent ambulances in Jabaliya collected numerous victims of smoke inhalation: a strange chemical smoke which seizes the lungs and air passage, and suffocates the victims. Many elderly were collected in turns, and a 3 month old baby was brought in held by a sobbing mother.

At least, at least we were able to reach them.  A Palestinian Red Crescent dispatcher has received what he says is hundreds of calls from the northern Gaza area alone, which have been left unanswered as the areas are under Israeli military occupation.

A glimpse of some of the cases one ambulance took during a brief 6 hours:

Abu Sheradha, 60.  Along with his wife, he was kept trapped within his home in eastern Jabaliya, surrounded by Israeli soldiers, and for 3 days wasn’t able to get the diabetes and hypertension medicine he needs.

Souad, 35, shot in both right and left arms and the left side of her abdomen.  Her three grandchildren were killed and the family house demolished by an Israeli army tank shelling at the home in eastern Jabaliya, family said.

63 year old Ahmed, one of at least 4 elderly kept locked in their home, at gunpoint, by Israeli soldiers who’d invaded the area east of Jabaliya.

With relative Safhia, 60, shot in wrist and shin and punched in the face.  Her husband was shot dead by the Israeli army soldiers and his body is still in the house they fled, she said.

Safhia, terrified, in shock from the ordeal of being locked into their house and abused by Israeli soldiers.

Elderly woman, gas inhalation case, Jabaliya

*minor injury: fractured finger, from missile blast in his back yard, eastern Jabaliya

*delivering pregnant woman to hospital; many women have been going prematurely into labour, a result, doctors say, of stress and worry under the bombardment.  The ambulance’s rear window was shattered by a missile blast which land less than 100m from the ambulance.

*teenager critically wounded in Israeli missile strike, Jabaliya area

*transferring to Shifa hospital, to critcal care

*brain matter out, result of missile strike on house, Jabaliya

a baby retrieved from Attattra, northwestern Gaza, where paramedics estimate 100s of calls to retrieve the injured and the dead have gone ignored due to Israeli troops occupation of the area.  Despite Geneva Conventions, medical personnel are not able to reach the wounded, many of whom are critically wounded and will die due to the prevention of medical access. This baby, killed in an explosion, was then run over by an Israeli tank, according to aid workers who eventually retrieved the body. [photo: Mohammed from Khan Younis]

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