Aid workers were shocked by the devastation in Gaza

Aid workers from Save the Children visited Khan Younis this week for the first time since Israel launched its attacks on the Gaza Strip over six months ago.

The sight that met them in the city, which before the war had over 200,000 inhabitants, around half of them children, made a strong impression.

– I actually became physically ill. My body reacted to seeing this absolute brutality, this total lack of respect for human life, says Save the Children spokesperson Sacha Myers.

Myers, no stranger to war and disaster zones, describes conditions in Khan Younis as apocalyptic.

Children in the ruins

– I have been to many war zones and disasters, but I have never been to a place where every single building as far as the eye can see lies in ruins, she says.

Together with the head of Save the Children’s operations in the Gaza Strip, Karyn Beattie, Myers saw children searching for water and food in the ruins of the bombed-out city.

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While every other building often remains unscathed after acts of war elsewhere, the two saw hardly a single intact building in Khan Younis.

Shocked

– We are shocked by the scale of the destruction, says Beattie.

– How is it possible to raze a city like this? How can you avoid getting angry when you see schools with colorful murals that are completely destroyed, when you know that children have been killed in them. How can one avoid getting angry, she asks.

– These buildings are the lifeblood of communities. A whole generation of children – if they survive – will have nowhere to learn, they will no longer have anywhere to go, says Beattie.

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Lost everything

The sight of children who have lost everything and who were wandering around the ruins in search of water, food and other supplies made a particularly strong impression on the two Save the Children workers.

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– I was struck by how many lonely children there were. When you drive through what feels like completely empty streets, you suddenly see children climbing out of piles of rubble, says Myers.

– I saw many children carrying jugs, I guess there was water in them. They were completely alone, I don’t know how far they had gone, she continues.

– We could see that it was heavy for the small children to carry, and it was terrible to see them walking around in the dangerous ruins of completely or partially collapsed buildings, says Myers.

Level with the ground

Many Palestinians who fled Khan Younis when Israeli forces captured the city have returned in recent weeks, only to find the houses they left behind are no longer there.

Large parts of the city have been razed to the ground and the streets have been torn up by Israeli bulldozers and deep bomb craters.

Like the rest of the Gaza Strip, Khan Younis is also without electricity and water supply, and it is uncertain when the city will become livable again, states Save the Children.

– It will take an enormously long time to rebuild – if the bombs one day stop falling, notes Beattie.