By Eva Bartlett
View Eva’s blog In Gaza
Friday night, Red Crescent ambulances in Jabaliya collected numerous victims of smoke inhalation: a strange chemical smoke which seizes the lungs and air passage, and suffocates the victims. Many elderly were collected in turns, and a 3 month old baby was brought in held by a sobbing mother.
At least, at least we were able to reach them. A Palestinian Red Crescent dispatcher has received what he says is hundreds of calls from the northern Gaza area alone, which have been left unanswered as the areas are under Israeli military occupation.
A glimpse of some of the cases one ambulance took during a brief 6 hours:
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- Abu Sheradha was kept trapped within his home in eastern Jabaliya.
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- Souad was shot in both right and left arms and the left side of her abdomen.
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- Souad’s injuries
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- Ahmed and least 4 others were kept locked in their home at gunpoint by Israeli soldiers.
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- Delivering a pregnant woman to hospital.
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- Gas inhalation case, Jabaliya
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- Ahmed with relative Safhia, 60, shot in wrist and shin and punched in the face. Her husband was shot dead by the Israeli army soldiers and his body is still in the house they fled, she said.
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- Teenager critically wounded in Israeli missile strike, Jabaliya area
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- Teenager critically wounded in Israeli missile strike, Jabaliya area
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- This baby, killed in an explosion, was then run over by an Israeli tank, according to aid workers who eventually retrieved the body. Photo: Mohammed from Khan Younis.