The following video was taken on the fifth straight day of Israel’s assault in the densely populated Gaza Strip. The scenes are from Al Shifa Hospital on Novemeber 18 and show victims, mostly children, of the Israeli bombardment. It was posted by Egyption activists who spent the night at the hospital. (Note: be sure to click the captions button, cc, at the bottom right for english subtitles.)
The video opens with a distressed young man in tears shouting on the phone, “I’ve got everyone except Mustafa, the one who’s missing is Mustafa. Yes, look for him under the rubble! Find him.”
A man holding an injured baby, describes how an Israeli plan fired a warning shell, yet proceeded to bomb the home before his family of 16 had enough time to flee. Consequently, “the little ones”, who are seen waiting to receive treatment, were injured by flying glass and debris.
At one point the electricity goes out. A frustrated man is heard saying, “just what we needed.”
Throughout the video, injured children are brought into the hospital, some bloodied and unconscious. One is Ezzedine el-Barqawi, who looks to be anywhere between three to five years old. It’s not clear whether the man who brought him in is his father, but he says about the injured child, “His crime is that he was in his mother’s arms when the bombing happened. He flew out of his mother’s arms to the ceiling. He smashed into the ceiling, got a shard in his head and fell drenched in his own blood unconscious.” The child was in the intensive care unit during the taping
Another small child is unconscious, possibly dead, with a bloody, gaping hole where his right jaw should be.
This was the same day that 10 members of the Dalu family were killed by an airstrike on their home. The four small children who died in that bombing are shown in the morgue wrapped in white sheets, while a man explains that they were found under the rubble.
One doctor explains that medical supplies are running dangerously low, particularly surgical materials. Shortages were an issue prior to the bombings because of the siege, so Israel’s assault exasperated an already critical situation. Another doctor alleges that the shells Israel is using are exploding in stages, once when they hit the ground and again moments later. “Surely these can’t be internationally legal,” he says.
Six-year-old Mahmoud Osama lies in bed crying in pain as his mother explains that he was hit with shrapnel while playing (like little kids are supposed to do). “What can we do? In the last war his brother was martyred and now here we are again,” she says.