Norwegian Doctor in Gaza Says This is an All-Out War on Civilians

Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, currently serving in a Gazan hospital, claims Israel is intentionally targeting Palestinian civilians and not just Hamas.

Mads Gilbert contacted Sky News on Monday and talked about how hard it is for children, women and men not connected to Hamas to avoid repeated air assaults by the Israelis. In a phone interview he told Sky News:

"Just a little bit more than an hour ago, the Israelis bombed the central food market in Gaza City and we had a mass influx of about 50 injured and between 10 and 15 killed. At the same time they bombed an apartment house with children playing on the roof and we had a lot of children also. This is really like from Dante's Inferno. It's like hell here now and it's been bombing all night. Up till now, close to 500 people have been killed and the number of casualties is getting to 2 to 2 and a half thousand which 50 percent are children and women."

Gilbert said the hospital is under-staffed and under-equipped to treat the injured and he said many of the staff have been working non-stop for three days in a row. He said:

"The relief now is not more doctors and more drugs the relief now is to stop the bombing immediately. This can not go on. It is a disaster."

Gilbert also said for every 10 people he treated at the hospital, he saw only a few Hamas soldiers. He told Sky News:

"I've seen one military person among the tens -- I mean, hundreds -- we have seen and treated. So, anybody who tries to claim this as sort of a clean war against another army are lying. This is an all out war against the civilian Palestinian population in Gaza and we can prove that with the numbers and you have to remember that the average age of the Gaza inhabitant is 17-years. It's a very young population and 80% are living below the poverty limit of the U.N.

Gilbert said civilians in Gaza are a poor and very young group of people, and unlike other wars they have absolutely nowhere to run to escape. He said they are fenced in on all sides and it is like living in a cage. He told Sky News:

So, they are bombing one and a half million people in a cage. And young people and poor people and, you know, you can not separate between the civilians and the fighters in such a situation."