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World / Middle East

LIVE UPDATES: 'Unbearable strain' on Gaza's health system as casualties rise due to Israeli strikes

Published: 26 Dec 2023 - 09:55 am | Last Updated: 26 Dec 2023 - 03:41 pm
An aerial view shows Palestinians mourning their relatives, killed in an overnight Israeli strike on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, during a mass funeral at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 25, 2023. Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

An aerial view shows Palestinians mourning their relatives, killed in an overnight Israeli strike on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, during a mass funeral at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the southern Gaza Strip, on December 25, 2023. Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

Doha, Qatar: Israeli bombings continue to pound Gaza, especially in Khan Younis, Bureij, Juhor ad-Dik, and Nuseirat. 

This brings the total number of Gazans killed to 20,674 with over 54, 500 injured. In a statement,  the Ministry of Health in Gaza stated that the occupation forces committed 25 massacres against entire families, killing 250 and wounding 500 during the past 24 hours. 

Meanwhile, hospitals in Gaza are barely holding on as conditions get worse each day in the besieged enclave. On X, formerly known as Twitter, the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Palestinian enclave’s health system is under “unbearable strain”.

Watch this page for more live updates:

[3:40 pm Doha Time] At least 20,915 killed in Gaza: Ministry

The casualties resulting from Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have risen to at least 20,915 killed and 54,918 injured since October 7th, according to a statement by Gaza Health Ministry spokesperson Ashraf al-Qudra.

Moreover, the statement said 241 people had been killed in the past 24 hours and 382 injured.

[11:25 am Doha Time] Lose a limb or risk death? Growing numbers among Gaza's war-wounded face hard decisions

The doctors gave Shaimaa Nabahin an impossible choice: lose your left leg or risk death.

The 22-year-old had been hospitalized in Gaza for around a week, after her ankle was partially severed in an Israeli airstrike, when doctors told her she was suffering from blood poisoning. Nabahin chose to maximize her chances of survival, and agreed to have her leg amputated 15 centimeters (6 inches) below the knee.

The decision upended life for the ambitious university student, as it has for untold others among the more than 54,500 war-wounded who faced similar gut-wrenching choices. Read more

[11:14 am Doha Time] 'Harrowing': WHO decries deadly strike on Gaza refugee camp

World Health Organization staff visited Monday a Gaza hospital receiving casualties from deadly strikes on a refugee camp, hearing distressing stories of entire families killed and seeing dying children.

"WHO's team heard harrowing accounts shared by health workers and victims of the suffering caused by the explosions," the UN health agency chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on X, formerly Twitter.


Palestinians mourn their relatives, killed in an overnight Israeli strike on the Al-Maghazi refugee camp, during a mass funeral at the Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah, in the central Gaza Strip, on December 25, 2023. Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

[10:53 am Doha Time] Several injured in Israeli shelling targeting aid organisation: Red Crescent

The Palestine Red Crescent Society says several people have been injured in Israeli artillery shelling that targeted the upper floors of the aid organisation’s headquarters in Khan Younis.

Thousands of internally displaced people are sheltering in the building, it said on X.

[8:15 am Doha Time] Casualties in Israeli aggression on Gaza reaches over 20,600 martyrs

The number of casualties of the ongoing Israeli occupation's aggression against the Gaza Strip since October 7 has risen to 20,674 martyrs and 54,536 wounded.

In a statement today, the Ministry of Health in Gaza said that the occupation forces committed 25 massacres against entire families, killing 250 martyrs and 500 wounded during the past 24 hours. The statement pointed out that the occupation has increased its aggression in multiple forms, including mass executions, massacres, wiping out residential neighborhoods including those in them, deprivation of health services.


Men recover the body of a victim killed in the aftermath of an overnight Israeli strike at al-Maghazi refugee camp on December 25, 2023. Photo by MAHMUD HAMS / AFP

[8 am Doha Time] WHO chief says ‘carnage’ has decimated health system in Gaza, calls for ceasefire

Sharing a video report on conditions inside Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, where staff are struggling to treat the dying and injured, World Health Organization

(WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the Palestinian enclave’s health system is under “unbearable strain”.

“The hospital is taking in far more patients than its bed capacity and staff can handle. Many will not survive the wait,” Ghebreyesus said on social media.

“With most of the health system decimated and brought to its knees”, the WHO chief said the latest attacks on central Gaza, which killed some 70 people overnight, underscored why an immediate ceasefire was needed in the Palestinian territory.