GLOBAL: NZ Red Cross worker reports on Gaza Strip bombardment

AUCKLAND (Pacific Media Watch / New Zealand Red Cross / Stuff): A New Zealand Red Cross nurse working in Gaza says she has never experienced anything like the current bombardment of the Strip in her long aid work career.

Gail Corbett of Levin has been seconded to the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and is working alongside the Palestine Red Crescent Society to provide emergency medical and relief services to the wounded and affected populations.

Corbett, 52, says the situation is difficult but she copes by keeping busy and doing everything possible to help those who need it. Part of her work is to ensure ambulances and hospitals are kept supplied with equipment and to negotiate safe passage for ambulances and medical staff.

Her work includes pulling injured Palestinians out of the rubble of heavily shelled houses, schools and buildings and transporting them to hospital.

“There were a lot of deaths, a lot of bodies. For the local people their priority is to bury their dead very quickly but our priority was helping the wounded and getting the women and children out. The numbers of women and children affected has been very high.”

The New Zealand Red Cross says it will send an additional nurse scheduled to Gaza next month, and is providing $50,000 towards the work the ICRC is carrying out in Gaza.

In the past three weeks, Israel has killed more than 1000 Palestinians and wounded more than 4100. Without an army of their own, Palestinians have been ill-equipped to respond to the aerial and nautical bombardment of the Gaza Strip, and a ground invasion of Gaza and the West Bank by the Israeli army. 

Bombed hospitals
Forty Israeli soldiers have been killed. More than 140,000 Palestinians have fled their homes.

Gail Corbett says she has visited several hospitals that have been bombed and seen the damage first hand. Equipment and ambulances have been damaged and destroyed, and health workers injured.

There have been global protests against Israel's killings of Palestinians.

The Pacific Media Centre reported two days ago that "thousands of protesters took to the streets in the New Zealand cities of Auckland and Wellington yesterday, as major demonstrations across the globe denounced the Israeli military aggression against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in a largely one-sided conflict".

The Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza has been completely overwhelmed. The Israeli army has also bombed mosques, the offices of charities and a rehabilitation centre.

Pacific Scoop report and pictures

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