Fr Manuel Musallam, the Parish Priest of Gaza, has told Caritas Jerusalem:
"There are dead bodies lying on the streets. The clinics are carrying out operations on the floor and women have no place to give birth.
"There is extreme fear everywhere here. The phosphorous gas being thrown in by Gaza is causing horrible reactions and the bombs the Israelis are dropping are literally cutting through people and through homes. You can hear children crying constantly. They don’t sleep. They have lost everything. 70,000 people are living in schools and they are very cold. The ones who haven’t gone to schools are living in their bathrooms or stairwells because they are afraid of shattering glass from bombs.
"The children are lacking medicine and are literally incontinent with fear. There is no water here. We are almost out of diesel for our generator that we have allowed people to come and cook from. When the diesel runs out we will have nothing."
Among the targets of Israeli shells:
-- A medical clinic in Gaza run by Caritas Jerusalem, destroyed by an Israel F-16 fighter jet on Friday. The clinic, in the Al Maghazi district of Central Gaza, was completely destroyed in the bombing, that also razed four homes.
-- On Saturday, a clinic run by the Middle Eastern Council of Churches in Al-Shuja’ia, east of Gaza City, was completely destroyed by another fighter jet. A telephone warning was given to evacuate the building within 15 minutes; the building was emptied, just before a warning shot was fired. That was followed by a direct hit from missiles fired by an Israeli air-force jet. This completely destroyed the building and its contents, including hundreds of thousands of pounds of medical equipment. There were no injuries in the attack. Nor was any reason for the attack given.
-- The Al-Quds hospital.
-- A mosque.
-- A U.N. compound which was today subject to shelling by white phosphorus shells, incinerating food and medicines. White phosphorus is an incendiary weapon which a 1983 international convention bans in the use against civilians. Phosphorus carries on burning, even if you throw water on it. The compound belonged to the U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees.
-- Two buildings used by international media.
In a statement, the Israeli military said it targets only locations used by Hamas "for terrorist purposes," or to fire at Israeli troops or civilians.
Palestinians killed in Israel’s offensive: 1,095. Nearly half are civilians. More than 330 are children. Wounded: 5,100.
