Latest update May 25th, 2026 12:35 AM
Palestinians gunned down lining up for aid in Gaza
…UK doctor said situation ‘worse than ever’
(AL-Jazeera) Israeli forces killed at least eight people in another shooting of aid seekers in Gaza, this time near a distribution point in Rafah governorate, according to the Wafa news agency.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that Gaza’s healthcare system is “extremely fragile” amid the ongoing Israeli war.
The organisation said in a statement on Sunday that the enclave’s hospitals are in urgent need of protection and reinforcement amid Israel’s continued bombardment and blockade. It added that the system is facing growing pressure due to increasing casualty rates from Israeli attacks at aid points.
“In the last two weeks, the Red Cross Field Hospital in Rafah has had to activate its mass casualty incident procedure 12 times, receiving high numbers of patients with gunshot and shrapnel wounds,” ICRC said in a statement on X on Sunday.
“An overwhelming majority of patients from the recent incidents said they had been trying to reach assistance distribution sites,” it continued.
Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire around aid distribution sites operated by the US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) since it launched on May 27.
The organisation ousted the United Nations and other independent agencies from the aid distribution effort following an 11-week blockade of the enclave that prompted numerous warnings that many of Gaza’s people now face famine.
Gaza’s Government Media Office reported on Sunday that the death toll from events centred on the GHF aid sites had risen to 125. A further 736 are reported to have been wounded, with nine missing.
Meanwhile, Victoria Rose, who has returned from her third humanitarian visit, recalls treating injuries that appeared to be ‘from the heart’ of explosions.
On a typical day at Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza, Victoria Rose, a British surgeon, would wake up before dawn.
“Because the bombing would start at four,” she said, now back in London, having just wrapped up her third humanitarian mission to Gaza since Israel’s war began in October 2023.
Over almost four weeks in May, she usually operated on 12 or 13 patients per 14-hour shift, unless there was a mass casualty incident overnight, meaning even longer shifts and more patients.
By comparison, in London hospitals, she treats a maximum of three patients per day.
“It’s operating nonstop in Gaza,” she said.
Recalling some of her many patients, she treated 11-year-old Adam al-Najjar, the sole surviving child of Dr. Alaa al-Najjar, whose nine other children and husband, Hamdi, also a doctor, were killed in an attack in Khan Younis last month.
She vividly remembers two brothers with lower limb injuries, Yakoob and Mohammed, who were the sole survivors of their family, and an eight-year-old girl named Aziza who was orphaned.
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