This is a message from our friend and coleague Dr Mona Qasim Alfarra, who directs on of the hospitals in Gaza and who works day and night with her colleagues to provide health care and psychological support, especially for children.
She posted it in Arabic on her Facebook this morning (Gaza time):
“The insane Israeli bombardment has not stopped. It has been going on all night and all day every day and everywhere, coming from the sea, from the air and from land canons. Naval bombardment is pouring its lava, targeting the coast of Gaza City and further north. Numbers of the killed and injured continue to go up..
More homes are being destroyed.
A whole population is being subjected to collective punishment. This is not only a matter of war crime. We are now facing a real genocide in Gaza.
As the day begins in Gaza, hundreds of ordinary people in need of regular health care are unable to reach health care centres. Meanwhile hundreds of wounded people, mostly women and children, if they can be taken to hospitals at all would find doctors and other medical staff working in dire and dangerous environments, under constant pressure, and with severe shortages of drugs and other necessary medical supplies.
So I can only say to the people of Gaza: as the morning approaches, make sure to embrace and hug your children and loved ones and tell them how much you love them and Dawn is bound to come ..
Mona Elfrra
Meca Projects Director
Red Crescent Society unprecedented
(English version by Ahmad Hadi Shboul,
Sydney, Australia, 12 July 2014)