Gaza: 50 killed in Israeli strikes since midnight
Civil defence official Mohammed al-Mughayyir stated, "The number of martyrs killed in Israeli shelling targeting civilian homes in the northern Gaza Strip between midnight and early this morning has risen to 50. Our teams are still working in those areas."
Hospital reports
A doctor at the Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia, who wished to remain anonymous, reported that 30 dead and numerous wounded, primarily children and women, had been admitted. Additionally, Mohammed Saleh, acting director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, confirmed receiving five deceased and over 75 injured due to the bombardment.
Eyewitness accounts
Yousef Al-Sultan, a resident from the al-Salatin area, recounted, "The Israeli occupation bombed the house next to mine, hitting it directly while its residents were inside." He described experiencing "air strikes, artillery shelling, and gunfire from quadcopter drones."
Rising displacement and fear
Al-Sultan noted a significant wave of displacement among civilians, stating, "Fear and panic grip us in the middle of the night."
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Middle East Eye
an hour ago
- Middle East Eye
US halts visas for Palestinian medical evacuees from Gaza
The US State Department announced on Saturday it was halting all visitor visas for Palestinians from Gaza while it conducts a "full and thorough review of the process and procedures used to issue a small number of temporary medical-humanitarian visas in recent days". The move follows unverified claims posted on X by far-right commentator Laura Loomer, who alleged that Palestinians granted medical-humanitarian visas were 'pro-Hamas' and tied to the Muslim Brotherhood. Her posts drew support from some Republicans, including Congressman Randy Fine, who called the visas a 'national security risk'. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (Cair) condemned the restrictions, calling them 'the latest example of the Trump administration's complicity with Israel's genocide' and 'intentionally cruel'. 'It is deeply ironic that the Trump administration would ban Palestinian children seeking treatment while rolling out the red carpet for racists and indicted war criminals from the Israeli government,' Cair added in a statement on X. New MEE newsletter: Jerusalem Dispatch Sign up to get the latest insights and analysis on Israel-Palestine, alongside Turkey Unpacked and other MEE newsletters According to Reuters, the US has issued more than 3,800 B1 and B2 visitor visas in 2025 to holders of Palestinian Authority travel documents, which allow foreigners to seek medical care in the United States. That total includes 640 visas issued in May alone. Heal Palestine, an NGO that coordinates evacuations for injured children and their families, said it has assisted 148 people so far this year, including 63 children in urgent need of care. On 4 August, the group announced its 'largest single medical evacuation' to date, bringing 11 critically injured children, along with caregivers, to the US for long-term treatment and rehabilitation. Basic right The Palestine Children's Relief Fund, which has facilitated free medical care for sick and injured children for more than 30 years, warned the visa halt would strip children of their 'most basic right to access medical care'. Reacting to the new policy, Loomer wrote on X that she hoped "GAZANS are added to the Trump travel ban", which targets a number of Middle East countries, "and hopefully every single Gazan who came in under [former US President] Biden and Trump is immediately deported'. 'They are not that sick if they can sit on a plane for 22 hours,' she added. Israel's bombardment has devastated Gaza's healthcare system, leaving the besieged enclave without a single fully functioning hospital. The World Health Organisation estimates that as many as 12,500 patients in Gaza require evacuation for medical treatment.
The National
12 hours ago
- The National
'They aim to kill': Surgeons in West Bank say Palestinian patients are coming in with more complex injuries
Surgeons are witnessing an increase in the severity of attacks on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, creating a greater life-saving challenge for medics who believe victims have been deliberately maimed. They told The National their patients' typical wounds have escalated from light injuries to people being severely wounded or killed by the Israeli security forces or illegal settlers. 'They're aiming to cause more casualties, not just to scare people away like before,' Dr Mariam Aweidah said. 'We're not seeing more numbers, but we are witnessing a lot more advanced and more difficult cases.' The latest UN figures show that 10,712 Palestinians in the West Bank have been injured, including almost 3,000 by live ammunition, since September 2023. The violence committed by ultranationalist Jewish settlers has also reached an average of four attacks every day. Head shots Before the October 7 attacks the security forces would break up disturbances by shooting at people's limbs, but after the Hamas killings medical staff have witnessed a massive increase in major trauma. Another doctor, who did not want to be named, said while previously the security forces were shooting at Palestinian youths 'to move them away from their area of operations, so they aimed at the legs just to push them away,' causing light wounds. 'But now we're seeing them aim to shoot as many people as possible and the injuries are more complex, more advanced, and it's usually aimed to kill.' Occasional air strikes on towns have also caused life-threatening blast injuries as well as deaths. The potential for saving life is also greatly challenged by the huge increase in Israeli checkpoints, with their vast queues meaning that a 35 kilometre journey from Jericho hospital to Ramallah now takes three and sometimes four hours. Surgeons gather To save more lives, surgeons of all specialties in the West Bank are being taught the fundamentals of trauma surgery, to provide emergency surgical care in conflict and catastrophe. The David Nott Foundation (DNF), a charity training frontline doctors in conflict zones, organised a course to train 60 Palestinian surgeons across a variety of medical disciplines. If an orthopaedic specialist has to deal with a severe head injury, they will now have an understanding of the steps required to keep them alive. The course, with the help of the World Health Organisation, managed to get the surgeons trained across five days last month, the main driver being keeping patients alive to get them to specialist medical centres in time. 'In the hospitals, you could have just one surgeon on duty and when a case comes in regardless of whether they're a vascular or an orthopaedic surgeon, they may have to deal with that specific trauma,' said Hetty Cane, who organised the programme for DNF. 'And this is a real problem in West Bank because the checkpoints often mean that you can't transport ambulances through them.' The doctors, some with 20 years surgery experience, were taught a variety of skills from ballistics, damage control, vascular surgery, head and maxillofacial trauma, plastic surgery and paediatrics. 'It's essentially an all-round course, supporting skilled surgeons to deal with every field of trauma surgery' Ms Cane added. Hospital isolation Those new skills will be vital for Dr Aweidah, for at times she has been the only surgeon on duty at her hospital. 'If I'm on call in Jericho, I am the only surgeon in the region, so I can't move, so I just have to stay in the hospital to stabilise the casualties before they can be moved between cities,' she said, speaking from the Palestine Medical Complex in Ramallah. 'As surgeons we are doing so much more than we used to. I'm a general surgeon, so brain surgery is not something I would like to do, but if I am alone in a hospital and the city is closed and I can't get the patient into another hospital safely, I would have to operate.' The key point, she states, is to 'save lives as much as you can in the hospital you're working in'. At times, with major chest injuries, general surgeons have had to 'just open up the chest and operate in the ER' but they had 'very good success stories based on the training with the David Nott Foundation,' she added. Ceasefire worries More worryingly for West Bank medical staff is that during the Gaza ceasefire from January to March there was a substantial increase in West Bank violence. There fears that after any peace deal with Hamas the situation could again become more intense if Israel attempted to annex large chunks of the West Bank – especially after Israeli cabinet minister Bezalel Smotrich stated this week he wanted to sever the territory in two. 'That will make the surgery training even more important,' said Dr Aweidah, who has been a doctor for 12 years. 'We are preparing for the worst, and that's why most of the training that we're having is just to build more expertise to deal with mass casualties and very bad advanced injuries.' She reflects that the future 'is not very bright' and that 'all the signs indicate that it's going towards a worse situation'.
Middle East Eye
2 days ago
- Middle East Eye
Gaza's hospitals receive 70 bodies over 24 hours
The Palestinian health ministry said on Saturday that 61,897 people have been killed and 155,660 wounded since the start of Israel's war on Gaza. It said hospitals received the bodies of 70 Palestinians killed in the past 24 hours, including eight recovered from under rubble and other locations across Gaza. At least 26 people were killed and 175 injured while seeking aid during the same period. A total of 1,924 Palestinians have now been confirmed killed and 14,288 wounded while trying to access aid. Since 18 March, when Israel broke the ceasefire and imposed a full blockade with heavy air strikes, at least 10,362 people have been killed and 43,619 wounded, according to the ministry. A Palestinian woman sits at the site of an Israeli strike on a school sheltering displaced people in Gaza City, 16 August 2025 (Reuters)
