GAZA CITY, Palestine

The Israeli army has destroyed more than 60% of the homes and residential units in the Gaza Strip, the government media office in Gaza said Thursday.

"Our people are facing a genuine and worsening humanitarian catastrophe due to the Israeli occupation army's destruction of over 60% of the homes and residential units in the Gaza Strip, especially in the Gaza and North Gaza governorates,” it said.

“The residential units housed more than 50,000 families who lost their homes entirely, in addition to 250,000 housing units partially destroyed by the occupation,” it added.

Regarding the state of the health sector in Gaza, the media office said it “is still experiencing a severe collapse. More than 26 hospitals and 55 health centers have ceased operations due to the targeting, bombing, occupation, destruction and blowing up of hospitals.”

The office pointed out that “thousands of martyrs' bodies are still under the rubble and civil defense teams have been unable to retrieve them due to the occupation's targeting of equipment and machinery and the lack of fuel for the remaining worn-out equipment.”

It emphasized that “Gaza needs 1,000 trucks daily carrying necessary and effective aid and one million liters of fuel daily to initiate the recovery phase.”

It held Israel and the international community “fully responsible for the crimes committed by the Israeli army during the war on the Gaza Strip.”

The office called for “the urgent entry of humanitarian aid and not procrastinating or obstructing the entry of a large number of trucks.”

It appealed to Arab and Islamic countries, the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to “develop an urgent Arab and Islamic rescue plan to find rapid humanitarian solutions to accommodate more than a quarter of a million families” who have lost their homes or whose homes have been affected.

It also urged Arab and Islamic countries and the world to “introduce fully-equipped field hospitals with medical devices to try to save tens of thousands of wounded and sick people who have suffered greatly during the war.”

In this context, the media office called for “the entry of hundreds of pieces of equipment and machinery for the Civil Defense and emergency teams to enable them to retrieve hundreds of martyrs' bodies still under the rubble.”

*Writing by Rania Abu Shamala