With Gaza under siege, Palestinians caught in the destruction have nowhere to go
MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
To the Middle East now, the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli bombardment for the past six days and nights. More than 1,400 Palestinians have been killed in airstrikes. That followed a weekend attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas that killed more than a thousand Israelis. Hamas continues to launch rockets from Gaza into Israel. Last night on the program, we heard from our correspondent Daniel Estrin with his report from the southern Israeli town Sderot. Tonight we hear from Gaza. NPR's Aya Batrawy has been talking with people there. Hey, Aya.
AYA BATRAWY, BYLINE: Hi, Mary Louise.
KELLY: Hi. What kind of stories are you hearing?
BATRAWY: Well, I've been in constant touch with people there and have been seeing the images of parents burying their children coming out on social media, some two and three children at a time being buried. NPR's producer Anas Baba, who lives in Gaza, also visited its main hospital today and sent me what he heard. And I should warn listeners you will hear the sound of explosions in this report, and some will find details of this story disturbing.
KELLY: OK, so sounds of explosions coming. Thank you for the warning. Let's hear the reporting you two have been gathering.
BATRAWY: Gaza is under siege. There's no electricity, fuel, food or water being delivered. The main power plant has shut completely. Hospitals are running on their last gallons of fuel for generators. Doctors and nurses are running on fumes.
(CROSSTALK)
BATRAWY: This is the sound of Gaza's biggest hospital, Al-Shifa. All of its beds are full, like all of Gaza's hospitals, clinics and medical centers serving its population of 2 million. Every functioning hospital is at full capacity. The stream of wounded and dead - children covered in soot, women wailing for their kids, men unconscious and bleeding - is relentless. The hallways and waiting room are overflowing with children and women, all there waiting for a sibling or a child to be treated or saved. But today there was a glimmer of hope - a life found under the rubble of a home, a baby boy brought out alive. Director-general of the Palestinian Health Ministry, Dr. Munir al-Bursh, held the baby boy in his arms.
MUNIR AL-BURSH: (Through interpreter) In my arms is a boy. We don't know his identity. A Palestinian ambulance brought him after his home was struck in the north of Jabalia. We still don't know his identity, but he's in good health. We're trying to use social media to help identify him.
BATRAWY: The doctor is protective over the baby, who's swaddled in a wrap and baby bonnet. They don't know where his parents are.
AL-BURSH: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: He tells reporters gathered outside the hospital to move because the sun could be bothering the baby. But hundreds of other children on Day 6 of this war in Gaza can no longer see the sun. More than half of those killed in Israeli airstrikes and bombardment have been women and children. One Palestinian woman, who holds dual citizenship in a Western country, is frantically trying to get out. Her embassy has promised to try but told her not to speak to the media. She wants to tell her story. We agree not to use her name for her safety.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: She talks about how impossible it feels not to have any water or electricity.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION BOOMING)
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: The airstrikes are constant in Gaza. After catching her breath, she says her family has lost all contact with the people they love in other parts of Gaza. This is the fifth war or conflict with Israel in the past 15 years. Most of Gaza's population are young. Around half are children. They've never left Gaza, a tiny strip of territory along the Mediterranean coast that's been under blockade by Israel and Egypt. But people in Gaza - those old enough to know - say this war, this time, is different. The scene is like that of an earthquake, but there are no international search and rescue teams or aid coming to help - entire neighborhoods damaged, unlivable, turned to rubble. There's nowhere to seek shelter.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #3: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: At Gaza's Al-Shifa Hospital, a man tells a paramedic there are bodies under the rubble in his neighborhood. They've been there three days, he says. The paramedic tells him, dial 101 quickly.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #4: (Non-English language spoken).
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: He couldn't help. He was heading out to another neighborhood. Aid groups are raising the alarm. The International Committee of the Red Cross says the electricity shutdown of the main power plant will turn hospitals into graveyards if they don't get fuel. Doctors Without Borders says the people of Gaza are, quote, "facing collective punishment from the total siege, indiscriminate bombing and the pending threat of a ground battle" as more than 300,000 Israeli reservists stand ready at the Israeli-Gaza border. Israel says it is striking only the targets it knows to be of value. But Israeli military spokesman Richard Hecht acknowledges this war and its airstrikes are like nothing the Gaza Strip has experienced.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
RICHARD HECHT: We are not now just doing carpet bombing, although there are some people that would like to see that. But that's not what we're doing. There's no target that we're going for or that is not based on intelligence. I repeat - there is no target that we're not going for which is not based on intelligence. And, yes, it's bigger than they have ever seen before.
BATRAWY: Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya at the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Gaza tells NPR he's seen things he's never treated in past wars.
HUSSAM ABU SAFIYA: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: He says today the hospital received a man with his kid. They died holding one another. The father was holding his son, and they died together, he said. In another scene he's witnessed, a mother died with her child on her chest.
ABU SAFIYA: (Non-English language spoken).
BATRAWY: He says they tried but couldn't take the child off. They'd been burnt so badly, their skin had fused together. Dr. Abu Safiya, who also works with the international MedGlobal nonprofit, said today in the flood of patients from an airstrike on a home packed with families, he found out later that two were his relatives. They were so badly injured, he hadn't recognized them.
KELLY: Ah - reporting there from Anas Baba on the ground in Gaza and Aya Batrawy, who is in Jerusalem. And, Aya, you're still on the line. I do want to ask, is there any talk about creating a humanitarian corridor, letting supplies get through?
BATRAWY: Yes. There is some pressure building for that from Arab countries like Egypt. Gaza's border crossing with Egypt was bombed, but Cairo would like to see that open for aid and fuel and for wounded people to leave. Aid groups like the U.N. World Food Program are also asking for these corridors that would bring in food and medical aid and, of course, fuel. The U.S. says it would like to see a safe passage out for American trapped there. But, you know, for hospitals, time is running out. They're running on generators that are at their last gallons. They tell me they barely have a week left of electricity.
KELLY: Really powerful reporting there. Thank you, Aya.
BATRAWY: Thank you, Mary Louise.
KELLY: NPR's Aya Batrawy in Jerusalem.
(SOUNDBITE OF STORMZY SONG, "FIRE + WATER")
Copyright © 2023 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.