War in the Middle East
Doctors: Horrible conditions in Gaza hospitals
A wounded woman in a hospital in Rafah (archive photo). More than 57,600 people have been injured in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7, according to the Hamas-controlled health authority. photo
© Hatem Ali/AP/dpa
The Hamas attack on Israel and the Israeli army’s counterattacks have turned Gaza into an inferno. Doctors report on the horrific suffering of people caught between the fronts.
Foreign aid organizations have reported horrific conditions in the few remaining areas Hospitals working in the Gaza Strip reported. “We are seeing injuries caused predominantly by explosions and shrapnel,” Oxford University Hospital’s senior surgeon and clinical director of the emergency medical team, Nick Maynard, was quoted as saying in a statement from the New York-based private aid organization International Rescue Committee (IRC). .
“Many adults, children and babies are admitted with traumatic amputations of arms and legs. We have seen young children with the most horrific facial burns,” Maynard added.
Corridors, stairwells, reception areas, wards – there are patients lying on the floor in every square inch of the hospital, he said. Many are also severely malnourished.
“The scenes in Gaza are shocking”
A first medical emergency team from Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP/Great Britain) and the International Rescue Committee (IRC) are now deployed in a hospital in the Gaza Strip to care for the many victims of Israeli bombing, IRC also reported. “The scenes in Gaza are shocking. In the first few hours in the hospital I treated a boy of about one year old who had lost his right arm and leg in the bombing – on the ground because there were no stretchers available,” reported Pediatrician Seema Jilani from IRC. “Orphans and babies arrive with severe burns, in shock, shaking in fear and barely alive. My heart breaks for the children in Gaza,” the woman said.
According to the health authority controlled by the Islamist Hamas, more than 57,600 people have been injured in the Gaza Strip since the war began on October 7th. The number of deaths was put at more than 22,400. The Israeli army’s fight against Hamas also caused immense damage to residential buildings and civilian infrastructure such as hospitals. Shortly after Christmas, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that only 13 of the original 36 hospitals were still partially functional. They are completely overcrowded and lack fuel, medicine, anesthetics, food and drinking water.
In addition to the Medical Emergency Teams, MAP and IRC would work together to supply Gaza hospitals with essential medical supplies from Egypt via the Rafah border crossing. On December 29, four trucks carrying medicine and other relief supplies reached the Gaza Strip. The material was distributed to hospitals in the southern and central Gaza Strip.
The war was triggered by the October 7 massacre carried out by terrorists from Hamas and other groups in Israel. Around 1,200 people were killed.