Doctors recount the horror of waves of airstrikes

Hospitals swamped by casualties and shortage of supplies as Israeli attacks end ceasefire

- By Jason Burke

Early on Tuesday 18 March, within minutes of the wave of Israeli airstrikes that broke the fragile two-month ceasefire that had brought some respite to Gaza, the emergency room of al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in the central town of Deir al-Balah was full.

"At no point were there less than 65 people in ER, all with open wounds, mainly women and children ... the floor was awash with blood," said Mark Perlmutter, a volunteer orthopaedic surgeon.

Just a few kilometres away, there were similar scenes at Nasser hospital in the southern city of Khan Younis.

"There was just wave after wave," said Tanya Haj-Hassan, a paediatric intensive care doctor. "As soon as patients had died or been sent elsewhere and we cleared some space, more would come in. It was chaos. One doctor stepped on a corpse on the ground as he tried to do a life-saving procedure on a child."

Palestinian medical officials say more than 200 people were killed last Tuesday morning alone across Gaza, and hundreds more injured. Within five days, as more airstrikes and shelling continued, the overall death toll in the devastated Palestinian territory in the 18-month war would reach 50,000, comprising mostly women and children. A total of 113,274 others had been injured, the health ministry said.

Israeli military officials said 80 “terrorist” targets were attacked in 10 minutes last Tuesday morning.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has previously blamed high levels of civilian casualties on Hamas, the militant Islamist organisation that launched the attack into Israel in October 2023 that killed 1,200. Israel accuses Hamas of using civilians as human shields, a charge it denies.