Chicago (WBBM NEWSRADIO) - Chicago area residents Thursday shared life and death stories of family members still trapped in Gaza while also calling for increased humanitarian efforts.
Compiling information from a number of sources on the ground in Gaza, including the World Health Organization and Doctors Without Borders, local physician Dr. Yasser Said tells WBBM an Israeli bomb explodes in Gaza every 84 seconds.
"Every 10 minutes a child is killed or crushed under the rubble," noted Said. "Every five minutes a child is injured, and every two hours a small body a Palestinian child has one or two of their little legs amputated because of trauma from Israeli attacks."
Said spoke at a press conference at the Council on American Islamic Relations headquarters in the Loop.
"Every day in Gaza, 160 babies are born in tents with the help of my tax dollars, enabling Israel to put them there," Said noted.
The doctor pleads to elected leaders at the City, State and Federal level for more of a focus on humanitarian aid in Gaza, as the pain of war extends to their constituents.
Others joined Said in his plea.
Twenty-six-year-old William Asfour, an auditor with Cook County, said that 209 of his own family members have been killed in Gaza by Israeli missile strikes since 2008, including eight in a recent strike. His relatives had nothing to do with the Oct. 7 attack of Israel, he said, and some of whom were as young as 3-months-old.
"I have a message for my congressman, Sean Casten: You represent the largest community of Palestinians in the U.S., we are your constituents, we want you to demand Israel gets held accountable and to save our families," Asfour said.
"I found out my surviving family, all their homes are destroyed, [they're] standing outside in tents, in the cold, in the rain, they have no food, they have no water."
Friday, at least six people were killed in an apparent Israeli airstrike on a home in the southern Gaza city of Rafah overnight. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians have crammed into Rafah, one of the areas where Israel has told people to seek refuge. But Israeli forces continue to strike all parts of the besieged territory.
Hamas' Oct. 7 attack from Gaza into southern Israel killed around 1,200 people, and some 250 others were taken hostage. Israel's air, ground and sea assault in Gaza has killed more than 22,400 people, two-thirds of them women and children, according to the Health Ministry in Hamas-ruled territory.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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