Israel-Hamas War: Gaza Stores Dead Bodies In Ice Cream Trucks

As the death toll in the Gaza Strip continues to climb, health officials have resorted to storing the bodies of Palestinians who lost their lives in the conflict in ice-cream trucks as the cemeteries run out of available space, Reuters 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," the news agency quoted Dr Yasser Ali of the Shuhada Al-Aqsa hospital in Deir Al-Balah as saying.

The refrigerated trucks, typically adorned with advertising images of joyful children indulging in ice cream cones, are usually employed for delivering goods to supermarkets. However, they are currently repurposed as impromptu morgues to accommodate the casualties of the intense conflict between Hamas and the Israeli army.

The war that began October 7 has become the deadliest of five Gaza wars for both sides, with more than 4,000 dead.

The Gaza Health Ministry reported a total of 2,750 Palestinians killed and 9,700 wounded. On the Israeli side, the casualties include more than 1,400 individuals killed, with Hamas capturing and taking at least 199 others, including children, into Gaza, as stated by Israel.

The Israeli military said on Sunday it would still allow Gazans to evacuate south ahead of an expected ground assault in retaliation for the attacks by eight days ago by Hamas gunmen, who killed 1,300 people in Israel.

A week of blistering airstrikes have demolished neighbourhoods but failed to stop militant rocket fire into Israel.

More than a million people have fled their homes in the Gaza Strip ahead of an expected Israeli invasion that seeks to eliminate Hamas' leadership after its deadly incursion.

Aid groups warn an Israeli ground offensive could hasten a humanitarian crisis. Israeli forces, supported by US warships, positioned themselves along Gaza's border and drilled for what Israel said would be a broad campaign to dismantle the militant group.