Gaza: Dead and dying at Rafah border - need help

Yesterday Mohammed was struck with shrapnel as he was taking those photographs. Thank God he was wearing a bullet-proof vest. [Rafah Today webmaster]

Damage to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Destruction in Gaza

Rafah children protesting at the border with Egypt

In addition to the Israeli bombing, there is the daily shelling by Israeli F16s, helicopters and Israeli warplanes over at the Gaza beach where a number of Israeli warships are patrolling and shooting at people who are passing by the main road of Salah Al Deen in the middle of the Gaza Strip. Israeli helicopters bombed the building of the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Gaza City causing damage to the building and everything inside it. A large number of people were killed and injured throughout the Gaza Strip. The entire Gaza Strip is being besieged, there are tanks and bulldozers everywhere, and Israeli helicopters hover overhead all day.

Humanitarian crisis and death:

When you don't have medicine, food, clean water and are only sleeping in the street, I can assure you that death is just around the corner. This is what's happening right now at the Rafah border with Egypt, where over 5 thousand Palestinians are waiting to get back into Palestine. Palestinians have been waiting for more than three weeks, sleeping in the streets on the Egyptian side.

On a local radio interview this morning with one of the people who are stuck at the border, a 28 years old woman said: "There are thousands of us here, people who were outside of Gaza, who found the crossing closed when we tried to go home. There are children here who need medication, old women and men who are in very bad shape, and need medicine and water".

She added: "There is nowhere to sleep, very few bathrooms for thousands of people, most of us have run out of money and we can no longer survive like this - we appeal to all human rights organizations to end this terrible situation! People are dying and we don't know how to preserve their bodies and it's not possible to bury them here." She was appealing to the international community and the world to stop this humanitarian crisis at the Rafah border and to put pressure on Israel to reopen the border and let people return to Gaza, and to allow those inside Gaza who need to travel to hospitals, to do so.

So far, 9 Palestinians have died awaiting entry into the Gaza Strip on the Egyptian side of the Rafah border crossing which has been closed for nearly three weeks.

At least 5,000 Palestinians, including 578 children, are considered to be urgent humanitarian cases.

Two people died at the crossing on Tuesday - a 19 years old woman and a 17 month old infant.

The young woman, named Mona Ismail, was returning from an operation in a Cairo hospital. She died as a result of a severe deterioration in her medical condition as she waited at Rafah. The infant, who was stuck as well named Hamza Abu Taleb, died of heat stroke.

Two other people also died over the past few days while waiting at the crossing. Hani Dawahidi, 70, suffered a heart attack after waiting nine days to return to Gaza after receiving medical treatment in Egypt. Muhammed Shuhab, 15, also died at the crossing after undergoing heart surgery in Cairo and now I got more news from Rafah border saying a 28 years old woman just passed away while she was waiting at the Rafah border.

The people who are stuck on the Rafah border are in bad need for water, food, and medication, if this continues, the number of the people dying will increase, as well as to the skin diseases spreaded among people as a result of not washing themselves for three weeks and waiting under the hot summer days on the Rafah border.

Rafah border can no longer work, since Israel is not letting the European Union observers come and carry out their work as it used to work three weeks ago.

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