The morgue at Gaza's biggest hospital is overflowing as Israeli attacks intensify
Gaza City (AP): The morgue at Gaza's biggest hospital overflowed Thursday as bodies came in faster than relatives could claim them on the sixth day of Israel's heavy aerial bombardment on the territory of 2.3 million people.
With scores of Palestinians killed each day in the Israeli onslaught after an unprecedented Hamas attack, medics in the besieged enclave said they have run out of places to put remains pulled from the latest strikes or recovered from the ruins of demolished buildings.
The morgue at Gaza City's Shifa hospital can only handle some 30 bodies at a time, and workers had to stack corpses three high outside the walk-in cooler and put dozens more, side by side, in the parking lot. Some were placed in a tent, and others were sprawled on the cement, under the sun.
"The body bags started and just kept coming and coming and now it's a graveyard," Abu Elias Shobaki, a nurse at Shifa, said of the parking lot. "I am emotionally, physically exhausted. I just have to stop myself from thinking about how much worse it will get."
Nearly a week after Hamas crossed through Israel's heavily fortified separation fence and killed over 1,200 Israelis in a brutal rampage, Israel is preparing for a possible ground invasion of Gaza for the first time in nearly a decade. A ground offensive would likely drive up the Palestinian death toll, which already has outpaced the past four bloody wars between Israel and Hamas.
The sheer volume of human remains has pushed the system to its limit in the long-blockaded territory. Gaza's hospitals are poorly supplied in normal times but now Israel has stopped the water flow from its national water company and blocked electricity, food and fuel from entering the coastal enclave.
"We are in a critical situation," said Ashraf al-Qidra, the spokesman for the Gaza Health Ministry. "Ambulances can't get to the wounded, the wounded can't get to intensive care, the dead can't get to the morgue."
Lines of white body bags soles of bare feet sticking out from one, a bloodied arm from another brought the scale and intensity of Israel's retaliation on Gaza into sharp relief. Hospital officials asked stricken family members to identify their loved ones. Some peered into the body bags, then collapsed into tears or screams.
Israel's campaign on Gaza has levelled entire neighbourhoods, killing over 1,400 people, more than 60 per cent of them women and children, according to the Gaza Health Ministry. More than 3,40,000 have been displaced 15 per cent of Gaza's population.
Israeli airstrikes on Thursday pummeled the heart of Jabaliya refugee camp, killing dozens of people including 45 members of the same extended family, Gaza's Interior Ministry said.
The Israeli military says it is striking Hamas infrastructure and aims to avoid civilian casualties a claim that Palestinians reject.
The deaths, and over 6,000 injuries, have overwhelmed Gaza's health care facilities as supplies dwindle.
"It is not possible, under any circumstances, to continue this work," said Mohammad Abu Selim, Shifa's general director. "The patients are now on the streets. The wounded are on the streets. We cannot find a bed for them."
With resources stretched thin, clinics understaffed and ambulances taking hours to get victims to medical care because airstrikes have ravaged the streets, some say it's not worth the trip.
"We know that if a case is critical, they just won't survive," said Khalil Abu Yehiya, a 28-year-old teacher whose neighbour's home was bombed in Thursday's airstrikes on the Jabaliya refugee camp.
When more heavy bombardment hit the Shati refugee camp just north of Gaza City along the Mediterranean coast, a new wave of wounded streamed into the hospital complex toddlers with bruises and bandages, men with makeshift tourniquets, young girls with blood caked on their faces. Because Shifa's intensive care unit was full, some lay in the hospital corridors, pressed up against the walls to clear aisles for staff and stretchers.
"I've been to many places and seen horrors and shelling. Not this level of insanity," said 36-year-old local photojournalist Attia Darwish as he watched the wounded pour into the hospital.
Among those killed in the strikes on the Shati refugee camp was Yasser al-Masri, whose body arrived along with those of his wife and infant daughter. Medics circulated photos of al-Masri and his daughter, covered in filth in the same body bag.
His friends shared his final Facebook post before Israel's warplanes struck.
"I only have a few hours before my phone dies because we're without electricity," he wrote. "There is no light at night except the moon. Please forgive me. I forgive all of you."
Gaza's sole power plant ran out of fuel on Wednesday. Shifa and other hospitals were desperately trying to save whatever diesel remains in their backup generators, turning off the lights in all hospital departments but the most essential intensive care, operating rooms, oxygen stations.
Abu Selima, director of Shifa, said the last of the hospital's fuel would run out in three or four days.
When that happens, "a disaster will occur within five minutes," said Naser Bolbol, head of the hospital's neonatal department, citing all the oxygen equipment keeping infants alive.
Hospital authorities said there wouldn't be electricity left to refrigerate the dead, either.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Cong takes swipe at PM over India not being part of US-led 'Pax Silica' grouping
New Delh (PTI) The Congress on Saturday said it is perhaps not very surprising that India is not part of a US-led strategic initiative to build a secure silicon supply chain, given the "sharp downturn" in the Trump-Modi ties, and asserted that it would have been to "our advantage if we had been part of this group".
Congress general secretary in charge of communications Jairam Ramesh took a swipe at Prime Minister Narendra Modi, saying the news of India not being part of the group comes after the PM had enthusiastically posted on social media about a telephone call with his "once-upon-a-time good friend and a recipient of many hugs in Ahmedabad, Houston, and Washington DC".
In a lengthy post on X, Ramesh said, "According to some news reports, the US has excluded India from a nine-nation initiative it has launched to reduce Chinese control on high-tech supply chains. The agreement is called Pax Silica, clearly as a counter to Pax Sinica. The nations included (for the moment at least) are the US, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia."
"Given the sharp downturn in the Trump-Modi ties since May 10th, 2025, it is perhaps not very surprising that India has not been included. Undoubtedly, it would have been to our advantage if we had been part of this group."
"This news comes a day after the PM had enthusiastically posted on his telephone call with his once-upon-a-time good friend and a recipient of many hugs in Ahmedabad, Houston, and Washington DC," the Congress leader asserted.
The new US-led strategic initiative, rooted in deep cooperation with trusted allies, has been launched to build a secure and innovation-driven silicon supply chain.
According to the US State Department, the initiative called 'Pax Silica' aims to reduce coercive dependencies, protect the materials and capabilities foundational to artificial intelligence (AI), and ensure aligned nations can develop and deploy transformative technologies at scale.
The initiative includes Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, and Australia. With the exception of India, all other QUAD countries -- Japan, Australia and the US -- are part of the new initiative.
New Delhi will host the India-AI Impact Summit 2026 on February 19-20, focusing on the principles of 'People, Planet, and Progress'. The summit, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the France AI Action Summit, will be the first-ever global AI summit hosted in the Global South.
Prime Minister Modi and US President Trump on Thursday discussed ways to sustain momentum in the bilateral economic partnership in a phone conversation amid signs of the two sides inching closer to firming up a much-awaited trade deal.
The phone call between the two leaders came on a day Indian and American negotiators concluded two-day talks on the proposed bilateral trade agreement that is expected to provide relief to India from the Trump administration's whopping 50 per cent tariffs on Indian goods.
In a social media post, Modi had described the conversation as "warm and engaging".
"We reviewed the progress in our bilateral relations and discussed regional and international developments. India and the US will continue to work together for global peace, stability and prosperity," Modi had said without making any reference to trade ties.
