Martyred Palestinians stored in ice cream trucks as makeshift morgues
A police officer places dead bodies in ice cream refrigerators due to the insufficiency of the hospital morgues at the Suheda al-Aqsa Hospital (Al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital) - PIX by ANADOLU AGENCY / REUTERS
The freezer trucks, whose sides still show advertising images of smiling children enjoying ice cream cones is a morbid contrast to the actual situation in Gaza.
The trucks once used to make deliveries to supermarkets are now makeshift morgues for victims of the devastating war between Hamas fighters and the Israeli army.
According to an Instagram reel by US-Palestinian photographer @motaz_azaiza Gazans have been forced to use the ice cream trucks due to the overwhelming number of bodies as there no space to store the bodies.
“As there is no electricity, they need a cold place for the bodies.
“Its not as it seems, it is not an ice cream truck for bodies, it is used to store bodies, before they are being returned to their families for burial," he narrated in an Instagram reel.
In a Reuters news report Dr. Yasser Ali of the Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah said that the hospital morgie can only take 10 bodies.
"We have brought in ice cream freezers from the ice cream factories in order to store the huge numbers of martyrs,” he was reported as saying.
“Even with these freezers, the number (of the dead) exceeds the capacity of this main morgue of the hospital, and alternative ones, and between 20 and 30 bodies are being kept in tents too,” said Dr Ali, as he opened the doors of the freezers to show the white-shrouded bodies inside.
“The Gaza Strip is in crisis and if the war continues in this way we will not be able to bury the dead. The cemeteries are already full and we need new ones to bury the dead,” Dr Ali said.
Head of the Government Media Office, Salama Marouf also said that authorities were alsp preparing mass graves.
“In light of the large number of martyrs inside the morgues of Al-Shifa Hospital, whose relatives did not arrive to bury them, signs of change began to appear on the bodies.
"And in light of the continued arrival of martyrs in thedozens as a result of the occupation’s massacres, a mass grave has been prepared to bury approximately 100 martyrs in the emergency cemetery.” he said.
Authorities in Gaza said Israeli air strikes had killed more than 2,300 people, a quarter of them children, with nearly 10,000 wounded so far.
Hospitals are running short of supplies and struggling to cope with growing numbers of wounded.
