64 bodies retrieved in Gaza as Civil Defense warns of dire humanitarian crisis

64 bodies retrieved in Gaza as Civil Defense warns of dire humanitarian crisis
People search for survivors after an Israeli airstrike hit a school sheltering displaced Palestinians, in the Al-Rimal neighborhood, Gaza Strip, on Tuesday. Gaza's civil defense agency said the attack killed 12 Palestinians. MAHMOUD ISSA/GETTY IMAGES

GAZA, Feb. 2 (Xinhua) — Gaza’s Civil Defense said on Saturday that it had recovered 64 bodies from the Gaza Strip while warning the dire humanitarian conditions in the Palestinian enclave.

In a press statement, the Civil Defense announced that 37 bodies were retrieved from northern Gaza. According to the statement, Israeli forces had used bulldozers to relocate bodies from various burial sites around Kamal Adwan Hospital, gathering them in open areas. Civil Defense teams later reburied them in Beit Lahia Cemetery. 

Meanwhile, the Gaza health authorities reported that 27 bodies arrived at hospitals in the past 24 hours. 

This brings the total death toll from the Israeli offensive to 47,487, with 111,588 injured since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the health authorities. 

Many victims remained trapped under rubble and in the streets, where emergency and Civil Defense teams were unable to reach them, said the authorities. In a separate statement, the Civil Defense warned that Gaza residents are facing an extremely dire humanitarian crisis, with tens of thousands left homeless without shelter or necessities for survival. 

The statement noted that the region is expected to face multiple storms, posing a severe threat to hundreds of thousands of people living in tents and structurally unsafe buildings. 

In addition, large amounts of unexploded ordnance and other remnants of Israeli military operations remain scattered in the streets and beneath the rubble of destroyed homes and buildings, endangering civilians. 

The Civil Defense urged the international community and human rights organizations to take immediate action to save lives before it is too late. 

XINHUA

Xinhua News Agency, founded on November 7, 1931, is China’s national news agency as well as a global news and information network. Xinhua has set up a global news and information gathering network, with headquarters in Beijing, 33 domestic bureaus in provinces, autonomous regions and municipalities plus the special administrative regions of Hong Kong and Macao, as well as 140 bureaus in the rest of the world. Xinhua is yet to set up a bureau in Taiwan, where it has posted resident correspondents. Xinhua provides its worldwide subscribers with news and financial information products in the forms of text, photo, graphics, audio, video, and mobile phone text messages 24 hours a day in eight languages: Chinese, English, French, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Japanese.