Israeli air forces have conducted nearly 200 airstrikes, bringing the death toll to 19. Among the casualties are ten civilians, including six children and one woman. More than 180 people have been injured by the attacks, the vast majority civilians....

we visited Al Shifa hospital, where most of the injured are brought to. There we spoke with doctors, patients, their relatives, and witnesses about what they are going through in the current escalation in the Gaza Strip. We wish to share some of the stories of the people we met....

At approximately 1.10pm, as we were leaving the ICU, a 10 month old girl, Haneen Tafesh, was brought into the ward. She was unconscious and her tiny body was grey. She had suffered a skull fracture and brain haemorrhage, which resulted from an attack that took place at around 11am yesterday in Gaza’s Sabra neighbourhood. She was in a coma and on mechanical ventilation. Later in the afternoon, we checked how Haneen was doing and doctors said her condition had deteriorated. After returning home in the evening, we learned that she had died....

Khalid Hamad, the Director of Public Information for the Ministry of Justice, was one of the other civilians injured in the indiscriminate attack of the residential area. He was at home with his family in Nabarat, Northern Gaza City, when they heard the sound of shelling, targeting a neighbour’s home. A number of people in the neighbourhood rushed outside to help and were targeted by a series of six additional shells. Hamad’s teenage nephew was lightly injured,and another man received shrapnel wounds. “They targeted civilians deliberately”, he said. “The Israeli forces don’t make mistakes.”

A 13 year old girl, Duaa Hejazi, was coming back to her home in Gaza’s Sabra neighbourhood, after a walk with her mother and siblings, when an Israeli missile fired on the road in front of their home around 8 o’clock at night. “I was bleeding a lot. My brother was injured too, in his hand. The neighbours brought me to the hospital” Duaa sustained shrapnel injuries throughout her upper body, with some pieces still imbedded in her chest. She would like to pass on a message to other children, living outside of Gaza:

“I say, we are children. There is nothing that is our fault to have to face this. They are occupying us and I will say, as Abu Omar said, “If you’re a mountain, the wind won’t shake you”. We’re not afraid, we’ll stay strong.”...

No one knows where the next missile will hit, no one knows where they can be safe. Parents are unable to keep their children safe, let alone provide them a sense of safety.

These are the names of the civilians killed in the attacks:

1- Walid Abadlah, 2 1/2 years

2- Marwan Abu Al-Qumsan, 52 years

3- Ramai Hamamd

4- Khalid Abu Al-Nasser

5- Habes Mesbeh, 30 years

6- Wael Al-Ghalban

7- Hisham Al-Ghalban

8- Ahmed Al-Jaabari, 52 years

9- Mohammed Al-Hams

10- Ranan Arafat, 3 years

11- Essam Abu El-Mazzah, 20 years

12- Hani Al-Kaseeh, 18 years

13- Ahmed Al-Masharawi, 11 months

14- Hiba Al-Masharawi, 19 years, pregnant woman

15- Mahmud Sawaween, 65 years old

16- Hanin Tafish, 10 months

17- Tareq Jamal Naser, 16 years

18- Oday Jamal Nasser, 14 years

19- Fares al-Bassiouni

This dispatch was prepared by an international group of journalists, human rights workers and teachers in Gaza. Here is the statement they sent to CounterPunch.

We are a group of internationals living in the Gaza Strip, working in the fields of journalism, human rights, education, and agriculture. We seek to defend and advocate for the rights of Palestinians in the context of the Israeli occupation and military operations. Besides being eyewitnesses ourselves, we gather our information from our personal networks across the Gaza Strip, from local media reports, medical staff, and local and international NGOs in Gaza.