Gaza doctors store dead bodies in ice cream trucks as morgues struggle to cope

A doctor at al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City has revealed that bodies are having to be stored in ice cream vans with the dead wrapped in white sheets with their names written on them.

‘We brought ice cream trucks from ice cream factories to preserve the huge amount of dead bodies the hospital receives every day,’ Dr Yasser Ali said.

‘Even with these freezers, the number of dead bodies exceeds the capacity. Additionally, 20-30 bodies are put in the tents outside every day.’

He added that some bodies were ‘so mutilated’ they could not be identified.

‘There is a real humanitarian crisis in the Gaza Strip. Gaza is facing a disaster. If this war continues, we won’t be able to bury the dead.’

Since the October 7 attack, Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says more than 7,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel’s relentless retaliatory bombardments, mostly civilians and many of them children.

Earlier today, the Israeli military said troops entered Gaza overnight with tanks and infantry in a “targeted raid”, striking “numerous terrorist cells, infrastructure and anti-tank missile launch posts” before retreating to home soil.

Late on Wednesday, its aircraft also struck Lebanon in retaliation for the launch of a surface-to-air missile, the military said.

Israeli air strikes continue to pound Gaza, and Palestinian militants launch rockets into Israel, the army reported.

The United Nations warned Thursday that “nowhere is safe” in Gaza as Israel stepped up its bombardments in preparation for a widely expected ground offensive.

On Wednesday October 25, French President Emmanuel Macron warned in Cairo that a “massive” Israeli operation in Gaza that endangered civilian lives was “not conducive to protecting Israel in the long term” and risked breaching international law.

His Egyptian counterpart Abdel Fattah al-Sisi also urged Israel “to avoid a ground invasion”.