Medical crisis in Gaza as conflict endures

 
 
Jerusalem (CNN) -- Patients being treated on the floor, because emergency rooms are overcrowded, medical sources say. Medicines running low. And, according to a Health Ministry spokesman, fuel shortages such that only half the available ambulances can run and the generators powering lights in hospitals might only last a few more days.

Sources there say that is the reality nowadays in Gaza, a dire situation that looks like it will persist or perhaps get worse -- since neither Hamas nor Israel's government have shown any indication of backing down.

Rockets being fired from Gaza into Israel are menacing and can be dangerous. Case in point came Friday, when a woman was hurt after a rocket hit a house in Be'er Sheva, according to Israel's military.

Every day, there are more such attacks, each one potentially lethal. Earlier Friday, for instance, Israel Defense Forces reported that two soldiers were lightly wounded in an attack by an anti-tank missile.

Hostilities between the two sides picked up weeks ago -- tensions that were exacerbated by the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli teenagers.

There's a disparity in the human toll in the latest fighting.

No Israelis have been killed so far by the hundreds of rockets fired toward southern Israel by Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other militant groups in Gaza. Some Israelis have been wounded.

More than 100 people -- including at least 23 children and 24 women -- have been killed and nearly 800 others have been injured in Gaza from Israeli strikes, according to Dr. Ashraf Al-Qidra, the spokesman for Gaza's health ministry. The toll kept rising Saturday, after an Israeli strike in Jabalya in northern Gaza that Hamas security sources said killed members of the Islamic Jihad militant group.

Those places where the injured are being treated aren't necessarily safe havens, either: Al-Qidra told CNN that at least one hospital in Gaza was shelled.

The medical sources who described the overcrowded emergency rooms in Gaza and dwindling supply of medicine characterized what is happening there as not unlike the chaos witnessed at Syrian hospitals during its civil war.

And even those not in hospitals or who haven't been impacted directly by airstrikes face significant challenges.

CNN staff in Gaza reported there are rolling blackouts, and there are water shortages in some areas because airstrikes have damaged pumping stations.

Israeli authorities insist that they want peace, and that they are striking back in order to defend their territory. As things stand, they contend, doing nothing is not a valid option.

To that point, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated Friday that there is one path to a cease-fire: the cessation of attacks from Gaza.

Observers wonder whether Israel will escalate its defense with even more offense -- by sending troops into Gaza. Nothing is off the table, Netanyahu said.

"We are considering all options and getting ready for every possible scenario," he said. "All the citizens of Israel are aware of my major goal, and this is to bring back the quiet to all Israeli territories. Hamas keeps attacking us, and therefore we are fighting them back."