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| Palestinian volunteers at Gaza City's al-Shifa hospital load a body bag with the remains of children on a stretcher, on July 21, 2014, after an Israeli air strike in Gaza City (AFP) |
Inside
Ashraf al-Qudra's cramped office in Shifa hospital, the phone never stops
ringing, with news flooding in of the latest victims of Israel's devastating
20-day military operation.
With over
1,060 people killed and more than 6,000 wounded, counting the dead is a
full-time occupation for the 41-year-old spokesman for Gaza's emergency
services.
Since the
operation began on July 8, Qudra has been sleeping just two hours a night on a
mattress in his office, his staff updating him round the clock on the latest
victims of the Israeli offensive, his phone constantly ringing with journalists
seeking details of the latest toll.
He lies
down for a rest, but his much-needed siesta is swiftly interrupted as an aide
rushes in.
"Doctor
Qudra, there are many many dead and injured in a shelling on Shuhada
hospital!" exclaims a breathless assistant.
The
41-year-old immediately begins scribbling down notes as phones ring and a
wireless radio crackles with news of more death and injury across war-torn
Gaza.
He calls
the hospitals, coordinating efforts to keep track of the wounded.
"There's
no safe place from the Israeli shelling," says Qudra, a tall man with a
neatly-trimmed beard who has been doing the job for four years.
"They
targeted Al-Wafa hospital, Shahada hospital and the European hospital, which I
feared would happen," he said.
"I
don't doubt they'll hit this hospital at some point," he says, watching
out the window as an ambulance unloads more of the wounded.
"The enemy
has gone beyond insane, there's disaster after disaster."
Unpaid
for months
Figures
released by the UN's humanitarian agency OCHA indicate nearly three quarters of
the victims were civilians and around a quarter of them children.
And it says
18 hospitals, clinics and medical centres have been hit and damaged by Israeli
shelling.
Israel has
lost 43 soldiers, and three civilians have been killed by cross-border
projectiles.
Shifa is
the largest of Gaza's seven hospitals, all of which have been working around
the clock since the Israel operation began on July 8 with the aim of
eradicating cross-border rocket fire, which later expanded into a ground
operation.
A call
comes in on the landline -- five more dead and at least 70 wounded, among them
doctors and paramedics in a strike on Shuhada hospital in Khan Yunis.
The phone
rings again. But this time it's his wife.
Qudra
cracks a rare smile and asks after his four children, reassuring them that he's
still safe and well.
He has seen
his family only once in the past three weeks.
"I
miss them," he admits.
And like
many ordinary Gazans, he struggles to support them.
Despite his
crucial role, Qudra, who recently qualified as a doctor, has not been paid for
several months.
Until two
months ago, he was spokesman for the Hamas-run health ministry, but the
Islamist movement - which administered Gaza until handing over responsibility
to a Ramallah-based government in June - ran out of funds to pay its government
workers.
But he does
not consider himself allied to Hamas, insisting his work is a humanitarian
duty.
"I
believe strongly in my humanitarian mission," he says of a job which
involves answering around 700 phonecalls per day.
Emotional
impact
Every
evening, he holds a news conferences at the hospital at which he reads out the
figures and names of the victims.
But long
before, every detail is meticulously recorded in near-constant postings in
Arabic on both Twitter and Facebook.
For
journalists covering the conflict, Qudra is the sole source of information. With
numbers rising so quickly, sometimes by 100 deaths per day, it would be an
impossible task to independently verify every casualty.
Qudra
insists his numbers add up.
"The
statistics we use and publish are accurate and objective," he says, proud
but weary.
His first
experience of a major conflict between Israel and Hamas was in November 2012
when 177 Palestinians and six Israelis were killed in an eight-day
confrontation.
This time,
he admits, the conflict has definitely affected him emotionally.
"I see
corpses and body parts all the time," he says.
"But
what really gets to me is the sight of women and children who've been killed in
shellings."
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