Smashed concrete and blown-up buildings surround the luminous white walls and pink, stained-glass windows of the church, which has been turned into a makeshift emergency ward for Palestinians wounded in Israel’s military offensive.
Mohammed Taysser Sadallah Al-Zarik, an amputee, is one of those patients. “I call all the world to help me get out (of Gaza) to get an artificial limb for my leg,” he told CNN on Tuesday. “I can’t stay like this anymore.”
Al-Zarik, 22, says he was injured in an attack on the Al-Zaytoun neighborhood of Gaza City, which also killed his cousin. His disability was compounded when doctors found a tumor and had to remove another part of his leg, according to his father, Abu Mohammed Al-Zarik.
“I hope they get him out of here for treatment, there is no treatment here,” Abu Mohammed Al-Zarik added. “There is nothing left here.”
In recent weeks, the Israeli military ramped up aerial attacks on parts of central and northern Gaza. Entire families have been erased and displacement shelters flattened. Hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians who once found refuge in hospitals are now on the run again – as medical facilities across the enclave are crushed by bombardment or besieged. Further south, in Rafah, some civilians are rushing northwards ahead of an anticipated Israeli ground offensive. Several Palestinians told CNN there is no peace to be found among the rubble.
“I call on all authorities and the world to look at my son and have mercy on him,” the elder Al-Zarik pleaded. “The young man is only 22 years old … He just started his life.”
