(NewsNation) — Israel continues to carry out strikes on the Gaza Strip as people on the ground say the humanitarian crisis is escalating, with Gazans dying in “brutal, horrific” ways.
Dr. Tanya Taj-Hassan, a pediatrician with Doctors Without Borders, joined “NewsNation Now” to describe what the situation looks like, saying people are dying in fast and slow ways.
“Over 1.6 million people have been displaced. The majority have been displaced down to the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip, Rafah, where they were told to flee, saying that that would be the safe area,” Taj-Hassan said.
“It’s cold, they’re starving, multiple humanitarian organizations have been talking about famine and catastrophic levels of starvation. And there’s a spread of epidemics. And just in the last 48 hours, they’ve started bombings,” she added.
Israel’s offensive has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians in the territory, displaced over 80% of the population and set off a massive humanitarian crisis, according to the Associated Press.
Taj-Hassan told NewsNation one of her colleagues on the ground in Gaza pleaded to be saved, saying, “We appeal to you to remove us from this certain death. I asked you to help. We are being subjected to extermination.”
“They’re being killed in these very fast ways, and they cannot receive care, then they’re being killed in very slow ways through starvation and hypothermia and epidemics of disease and normal medical conditions that you should survive. But you’re dying as a consequence of a complete annihilation of the health care system [in Gaza],” Taj-Hassan said.
Israel has described Rafah as the last remaining Hamas stronghold in the territory and signaled that its ground offensive may soon target the town on the southern edge of the Gaza Strip.
“It’s against international humanitarian law to continuously forcibly displace the population. And the areas where they’re being forcibly displaced to, Israelis are targeting anyway. And so people are saying, well, we’re asked to flee, but then we’re bombed in these places where we’re told to flee to,” Taj-Hassan said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.