Gaza update
October 16, 2023
Contact with our partners in Gaza, who worked in our child trauma clinic until the 7th October massacre of Israeli citizens by Hamas extremists, is sporadic.
With no electricity, and fuel for generators running out, it is extremely hard for our project manager to keep in touch with us. We fear very greatly for his safety and that of his family, the other team members and their families, and for all the children our project has helped in the three years of its existence.
The work of the clinic is of course suspended. Last we heard, the building itself still stands but the area around it has been flattened.
The last message from our project manager, received 15 October, reads:
‘I fled to different areas for fear of bombardment, and I was given voicemails to evacuate my house by the army. I tried to go south but it was hard. They killed 70 people going south of Gaza…returned to northern Gaza. I suffer from no drinking water, electricity, internet, fuel, vegetables, we live on food canned and some bread. Every day I think we will go to the sky…massacres, massacres, shelling and shrapnel arriving in our house.’
At Firefly, while the horror we expressed in our statement we made last Monday at the outrage conducted in southern Israel remains undimmed, we now have to add the horror we feel at the suffering inflicted on the citizens of Gaza, by the bombardment, the siege of the strip and the cut-off of supplies which are essential to life.
We call on all state and non-state actors to take urgent action to stop the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The continuing slaughter, including of children, achieves nothing worth achieving. For the sake of the children, we ask all our supporters to call for an immediate ceasefire to allow for full, ongoing humanitarian access.