Grim Cycle of Death at a Hospital in Gaza

Bodies are moved at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, in a file picture taken on November 14 - AFP
Bodies are moved at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, in a file picture taken on November 14 - AFP
TT

Grim Cycle of Death at a Hospital in Gaza

Bodies are moved at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, in a file picture taken on November 14 - AFP
Bodies are moved at the Nasser hospital in Khan Yunis, in a file picture taken on November 14 - AFP

A middle-aged man with a blank, shattered expression walked slowly down a ramp at the hospital, gently cradling in his arms a tiny body wrapped in a white shroud.

After the collapse of a week-long truce between Israel and Hamas, the Nasser hospital's morgue in Khan Yunis, southern Gaza, was full once again on Saturday.

A handful of women wept for their own children, while a group of men nearby prayed for the dead.

"My son Mohammed tried to get the women and children out of our tent" at a makeshift camp where they had sheltered inside a school, Jumana Murad said of the 19-year-old.

"But a piece of shrapnel hit him in the head... I saw his brains," she told AFP, before bursting into tears.

The family had left their home in Gaza City after the Israeli army told around 1.1 million people in the north of the Palestinian territory to move to avoid the fighting following Hamas militants' unprecedented October 7 attacks on Israel.

"They tossed out leaflets to tell us 'you will be safe in the south', so we went there," she said.

"My son is dead, my son Mohammed, who was a nice boy, and who listened to me whenever I needed to get something off my chest."

At her side, her daughter Joelle Murad shook in her red embroidered dressing gown, screaming out to God and to anyone in earshot.

"Why was my brother, who had nothing to do with militant groups, killed?" she cried. "What did we do? They want Hamas? What does that have to do with us?"

Men at Nasser hospital -- doctors, medical technicians, victims' loved ones -- brought out the corpses in white body bags.

Families gathered for one last look at the dead, caressing their hair, touching their hands or kissing their faces, sometimes still stained with blood.

To Gazans, the dead are "martyrs", so their bodies are not given the traditional Muslim funeral cleansing.

The bodies are carried out on stretchers, or on long metal trays from the morgue's cold rooms -- where electricity supplies are intermittent to non-existent.

Funerals are carried out quickly, and family members cannot always be reached, but the small crowd in the courtyard paused and gathered before all the bodies, reciting prayers for the dead.

The wrapped remains were loaded into ill-suited civilian vehicles -- ambulances are only for the living -- and taken away to rapidly filling cemeteries.

Behind them, more bodies were coming out of the morgue, one more mother cried for her son and the crowd readied for another funeral prayer.



US Defers Removal of Some Lebanese, Citing Israel-Hezbollah Tensions

Smoke billows from a site targeted by Lebanon's Hezbollah, along the northern Israeli border with Lebanon on July 25, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
Smoke billows from a site targeted by Lebanon's Hezbollah, along the northern Israeli border with Lebanon on July 25, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
TT

US Defers Removal of Some Lebanese, Citing Israel-Hezbollah Tensions

Smoke billows from a site targeted by Lebanon's Hezbollah, along the northern Israeli border with Lebanon on July 25, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)
Smoke billows from a site targeted by Lebanon's Hezbollah, along the northern Israeli border with Lebanon on July 25, 2024, amid ongoing cross-border clashes between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. (AFP)

The United States is deferring the removal of certain Lebanese citizens from the country, President Joe Biden said on Friday, citing humanitarian conditions in southern Lebanon amid tensions between Israel and Hezbollah.

The deferred designation, which lasts 18 months, allows Lebanese citizens to remain in the country with the right to work, according to a memorandum Biden sent to the Department of Homeland Security.

"Humanitarian conditions in southern Lebanon have significantly deteriorated due to tensions between Hezbollah and Israel," Biden said in the memo.

"While I remain focused on de-escalating the situation and improving humanitarian conditions, many civilians remain in danger; therefore, I am directing the deferral of removal of certain Lebanese nationals who are present in the United States."

Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah have been trading fire since Hezbollah announced a "support front" with Palestinians shortly after its ally Hamas attacked southern Israeli border communities on Oct. 7, triggering Israel's military assault in Gaza.

The fighting in Lebanon has killed more than 100 civilians and more than 300 Hezbollah fighters, according to a Reuters tally, and led to levels of destruction in Lebanese border towns and villages not seen since the 2006 Israel-Lebanon war.

On the Israeli side, 10 Israeli civilians, a foreign agricultural worker and 20 Israeli soldiers have been killed. Tens of thousands have been evacuated from both sides of the border.