The effect Israel’s war in Gaza is having on civilians is ‘brutal to see’

Published

2 years ago

December 6, 2023

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Israel said its troops have entered Gaza’s second-largest city, while intensive bombardment has sent streams of ambulances and cars racing to hospitals with wounded and dead Palestinians. Here, Sky News’ chief correspondent Stuart Ramsay looks at the effects of a bloody new phase of the war.

It’s hard to believe but it’s actually getting worse in Gaza as every hour passes. The latest pictures from inside hospitals and on the streets are quite extraordinary.

Israel says it’s clearing out the north and the south of the strip in two simultaneous operations to take down Hamas.

But the effect their campaign is having on the civilian population is brutal to see.

Israel-Gaza latest: US steps up pressure on Israel with visa ban

Hospitals are overwhelmed, they ran out of beds long ago, now they’re running out of space on the floors as they struggle to keep men, women, and a lot of children alive.

The pictures from our team inside Gaza show medical staff struggling to deal with the sheer volume of injuries that pass through their doors in a near-constant stream.

In the north of Gaza people are crammed into the compound of the Kamal Adwan Hospital, seeking safety.

Beyond the walls, they film as the sounds of huge explosions reverberate through the tents of the displaced.

On the street, people out looking for supplies start running as fighting breaks out a short distance away. They too start heading to the hospital desperate to get inside for the protection they hope it will afford them.

One woman, holding her sleeping little boy, his face a mess of cuts after their street was hit by an Israeli bomb, told the team she had only just arrived at the hospital. Her son will be two years old in two days.

She couldn’t stay at her home anymore.

“Everyone left, they were continuously shelling us last night, we had just arrived and were about to go to sleep, then everything started,” she said.

“People were hit all around us, everything was destroyed. Look at what happened to him, this child. What has this child done? Is he carrying any weapons?”

Outside the hospital, a man covered in dust was asked why he was staying at the hospital.

“Because we cannot find anything to protect us, that is why. We only have our God to protect us before anything,” he said.

“We are saying we do not need anything, all we want is to live with our family, children and our loved ones and also the whole world to live in peace and safety, no one listens to us, no one hears us, no Arabs, no foreigners, no one. What do they want from us?”

Other pictures from inside Gaza show desperate scenes of chaos.

At the Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis in the south of the strip, they’re treating people on the floor – it’s covered in blood.

Children, men, women; the young and old. Injured from airstrikes on homes and schools. In many cases they lie on the floor, clinging on to life.

One of the injured, a small boy, is holding onto a purple sweet.

He’s being treated on the floor, and he’s alone.

There really isn’t much that can be done for these patients. It’s not hopeless only because the staff keep going regardless of the odds of keeping many of them alive.

Incredibly the situation is actually getting worse. It’s hard to imagine. But it is.

The United States among other nations has told Israel too many civilians are being injured and killed in their campaign against Hamas.

Israel says it’s moving into the next phase of its campaign, and that its fight against Hamas continues.

The people of Gaza are stuck in the middle of a brutal war.

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Famine declared in Gaza City – and projected to expand to two other areas in the next month

Published

5 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Famine declared in Gaza City - and projected to expand to two other areas in the next month

A famine has been declared in Gaza City and the surrounding neighbourhoods.

The Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) – a globally recognised system for classifying the severity of food insecurity and malnutrition – has confirmed just four famines since it was established in 2004.

These were in Somalia in 2011, and in Sudan in 2017, 2020, and 2024.

The confirmation of famine in Gaza City is the IPC’s first outside of Africa.

“After 22 months of relentless conflict, over half a million people in the Gaza Strip are facing catastrophic conditions characterised by starvation, destitution and death,” the report said, adding that more than a million other people face a severe level of food insecurity.

Over the next month conditions are also expected to worsen, with the famine projected to expand to Deir al-Balah and Khan Younis, the report said.

Nearly a third of the population (641,000 people) are expected to face catastrophic conditions while acute malnutrition is projected to continue getting worse rapidly.

Over the next year, the report said at least 132,000 children will suffer from acute malnutrition – double the organisation’s estimates from May 2024.

Israel says no famine in Gaza

Volker Turk, the UN Human Rights chief, said the famine is the direct result of actions taken by the Israeli government.

“It is a war crime to use starvation as method of warfare, and the resulting deaths may also amount to the war crime of wilful killing,” he said.

COGAT, the Israeli military agency that coordinates aid, has rejected the findings.

Israel accused of allowing famine to fester in Gaza

Tom Fletcher, speaking on behalf of the United Nations, did not mince his words.

Gaza was suffering from famine, the evidence was irrefutable and Israel had not just obstructed aid but had also used hunger as a weapon of war.

His anger seeped through every sentence, just as desperation is laced through the report from the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC).

Conditions are expected to worsen, it says, even though the Gaza Strip has been classified as a level 5 famine. There is no level 6.

But it took only moments for the Israeli government to respond in terms that were just as strident.

Read Adam Parsons’ analysis here.

Israel’s foreign ministry said there is no famine in Gaza: “Over 100,000 trucks of aid have entered Gaza since the start of the war, and in recent weeks a massive influx of aid has flooded the Strip with staple foods and caused a sharp decline in food prices, which have plummeted in the markets.”

Another UN chief made a desperate plea to Israel’s prime minister to declare a ceasefire in the wake of the famine announcement.

Tom Fletcher, UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, said famine could have been prevented in the strip if there hadn’t been a “systematic obstruction” of aid deliveries.

“My ask, my plea, my demand to Prime Minister Netanyahu and anyone who can reach him. Enough. Ceasefire. Open the crossings, north and south, all of them,” he said.

The IPC had previously warned famine was imminent in parts of Gaza, but had stopped short of a formal declaration.

The latest report on Gaza from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) says there were almost 13,000 new admissions of children for acute malnutrition recorded in July.

The latest numbers from the Gaza health ministry are 251 dead as a result of famine and malnutrition, including 108 children.

But Israel has previously accused Hamas of inflating these figures, saying that most of the children who died had pre-existing health conditions.

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Suspect arrested over Nord Stream attacks served in Ukraine’s army, Sky News understands

Published

5 hours ago

August 22, 2025

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Suspect arrested over Nord Stream attacks served in Ukraine's army, Sky News understands

The Ukrainian suspected of coordinating attacks on the Nord Stream pipelines had served in Ukraine’s Secret Service and in the Ukrainian Army’s special forces, Sky News understand.

Serhii K., 49, was arrested in northern Italy on Thursday following the issuance of a European arrest warrant by German prosecutors.

It is not known whether he was still serving at the time of the pipeline attack in 2022 and Ukraine’s government has always denied any involvement in the explosions.

According to sources close to the case, the suspect has been found in a three-star bungalow hotel named La Pescaccia in San Clemente, in the province of Rimini.

When military officers from Italy’s Carabinieri investigative and operational units raided his bedroom, he didn’t try to resist the arrest.

The hotel’s employees have been questioned, but no further evidence or any weapons were found, the sources added.

Serhii arrived on Italy’s Adriatic coast earlier this week, and the purpose of his trip was a holiday. He was found with his two children and his wife.

At least one of the four people within his family had a travel ticket issued in Poland. He crossed the Italian border with his car with a Ukrainian license plate last Tuesday.

He was travelling with his passport, and he used his real identity to check into the hotel, triggering an emergency alert on a police server, we have been told.

After the arrest, he was taken to the Rimini police station before being moved to a prison in Bologna, the regional capital, on Friday.

Deputy Bologna Prosecutor Licia Scagliarini has granted the German judicial authorities’ requests for Serhii’s surrender, but Sky News understands the man told the appeal court that he doesn’t consent to being handed over to Germany.

He also denied the charges and said he was in Ukraine during the Nord Stream sabotage. He added that he is currently in Italy for family reasons.

While leaving the court, he was seen making a typical Ukrainian nationalist ‘trident’ gesture to the reporters.

The next hearing is scheduled for 3 September, when the Bologna appeal court is set to decide whether Serhii will be extradited to Germany or not. He will remain in jail until then.

In Germany, he will face charges of collusion to cause an explosion, anti-constitutional sabotage and the destruction of structures.

German prosecutors believe he was part of a group of people who planted devices on the pipelines near the Danish island of Bornholm in September 2022.

Serhii and his accomplices are believed to have set off from Rostock on Germany’s north-eastern coast in a sailing yacht to carry out the attack.

The explosions severely damaged three pipelines transporting gas from Russia to Europe. It represented a significant escalation in the Ukraine conflict and worsening of the continent’s energy supply crisis.

According to a US intelligence report leaked in 2023, a pro-Ukraine group was behind the attack. Yet, no group has ever claimed responsibility.

Sky News understands Genoa’s Prosecutor’s Office in northern Italy has requested their colleagues in Bologna to share the information related to Serhii.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors are investigating another alleged sabotage linked to the Russian shadow fleet oil tanker Seajewel, which sank off the port of Savona last February.

On Thursday, they asked an investigative police unit to figure out whether there is a link between that episode and the Nord Stream attacks.