Gaza is using ice cream trucks to store bodies because morgues are running out of space: report
Stringer/Reuters
- Gazan authorities have started using ice cream trucks to store dead bodies, Reuters reported.
- Hospitals, morgues, and cemeteries are struggling to keep up with the death toll in the Gaza Strip.
- More than 2,600 people have died from Israeli air strikes, Palestinian authorities said.
Health officials in Gaza are storing bodies in ice cream trucks as morgues and cemeteries run out of space, Reuters reported on Sunday.
The Gaza Strip, a 140-square-mile area where around 2 million Palestinians live, has been bombarded by Israeli air strikes in the last week, killing what local officials said are some 2,600 people.
The air strikes were carried out in retaliation for an October 7 terrorist attack on Israel by the militant group Hamas, which Israel said killed more than 1,300 people.
As the Israeli air strikes continue, officials have started using freezer trucks as temporary morgues, per Reuters. These trucks are normally used to deliver goods to supermarkets, the outlet reported.
"The hospital morgue can only take 10 bodies, so we have brought in ice cream freezers from the ice cream factories in order to store the huge numbers of martyrs," Dr. Yasser Ali, who works in the Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital, told the outlet. The hospital is in Deir al-Balah, a city around nine miles south of Gaza City.
Reuters reported that ice cream trucks are also being used to store bodies because it's too risky to move the corpses to hospitals. Its senior correspondent, Nidal Al-Mughrabi, reported that Reuters was shown the bodies in the trucks.
But the freezers still aren't enough, and hospitals and morgues are still over capacity, Ali told Reuters. As many as 30 bodies are being kept in tents, he told the outlet.
Doha-based Al Jazeera, which is owned by the Qatari state, also reported on Saturday that ice cream trucks and refrigerated food vehicles were being used to store bodies.
The Shehab News Agency, which according to Reporters without Borders is affiliated with Hamas, reported the same as well.
The Israeli Air Force said on Thursday that it had bombed the Gaza Strip more than 6,000 times, and would continue to "attack forcefully and relentlessly" in response to the October 7 terrorist attacks.
The incursions by Hamas, whose fighters broke through the Israel-Gaza border and attacked civilian neighborhoods, were the worst attacks Israel had seen in decades. Hamas militants took an estimated 150 people hostage, including some US citizens, and brought them to Gaza, prompting Israel to prepare for an anticipated mass ground offensive.
Around 300,000 Israeli reservists have been mobilized from around the world, and Israeli tanks are gathered at the border of the Gaza Strip, which was put under a complete siege and left without food, water, and electricity for days.
The Israel Defense Forces issued an evacuation order to northern Gaza late on Thursday evening, telling civilians they had 24 hours to leave the area. Israel later extended the deadline, but the United Nations has criticized its tight window, saying it would be "impossible" for the 1.1 million people in the area to flee in time.
Meanwhile, Hamas has instructed the people of northern Gaza not to leave, urging them to defy a "psychological war" waged by Israel.