NefeshBarYochai
2024-06-22 00:57:35 UTC
Rotting wounds, starvation, babies born in tents without anesthesia,
the spread of infectious disease, and the severe lack of medicine are
all part of the new normal for over two million people living in Gaza.
Last week, the Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry said that about
600,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip no longer have access to any
kind of healthcare. It also warned that medicine fridges and the only
oxygen plant in Gaza are at risk of shutting down due to the
systematic lack of fuel. The World Health Organization has said that
Israel is systematically dismantling the health system in Gaza. Save
The Children has reported that Israels attacks on the health sector
in Gaza have been higher than in any other conflict at the rate of
73 attacks per day.
But one of the most major blows that Gazas health system suffered was
in early April, following a two-week Israeli siege of al-Shifa
Hospital, leaving the medical compound completely and permanently
non-operational. The aftermath of the siege revealed that a massacre
had occurred. Mondoweiss gathered testimonies from survivors of how it
was carried out by Israeli soldiers, which included rounding up people
in the hospital, separating them into groups identified by
differently-colored bracelets, and executing one of the groups before
burying them in mass graves.
Al-Shifa was the largest Palestinian medical complex in all of
historic Palestine. Founded under the British Mandate in 1946, it grew
over the years until it became the Gaza Strips primary medical hub,
housing 25% of its medical staff. It was the beating heart of Gazas
health system.
Al-Shifa was the center of all medical services in the Strip. It was
the ultimate destination for complex medical conditions, Nebal
Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society
(PRCS), told Mondoweiss. It was also the training center of a large
number of medical students and practicing junior doctors.
During previous wars, al-Shifa was a hub for receiving complicated
injuries and the overload from other hospitals, as it had the most
complete equipment and a wide range of specialized doctors in most
medical fields, Farsakh added. Yet, al-Shifa was repeatedly
overwhelmed during the Israeli assaults of 2008 and 2014, which were
much shorter and caused much less casualties than the current
assault.
My 19-year-old cousin, Anas Abu Rass, lost his leg after bomb
shrapnel hit him while he was sleeping in his bedroom, Huda Amer, a
resident of Gaza City who continues to live there with her family,
told Mondoweiss. For this critical wound, in normal conditions, we
would have taken him to al-Shifa. Now he is being treated in a small
primary health care center where they dont have the equipment, and
they had to amputate his leg.
Most patients who have scheduled surgeries on the public health
insurance list were treated at al-Shifa. Now, they are all waiting
their turn in the remaining overcrowded hospitals and getting whatever
help they can in small clinics, like my cousin, she added.
The second largest hospital in the Strip after al-Shifa was the Nasser
Hospital in Khan Younis. Israeli forces besieged the hospital for
weeks at a time between February and April, targeting Palestinians
inside with sniper fire. In mid-February, Israeli forces raided the
hospital and forced medical staff and patients alike to leave its
premises, arresting hundreds.
The Israeli army withdrew from Khan Younis in early April. After the
withdrawal, Palestinians found hundreds of bodies buried in mass
graves in the hospitals vicinity, a repeat of al-Shifa. Many of the
bodies unearthed from the scene had medical catheters still attached
to their bodies, indicating that they had been patients. Others were
found with their hands bound by zip-ties with Hebrew labels on them.
Mondoweiss gathered testimonies from people who visited the mass
graves searching for missing relatives who had disappeared months
earlier. Some were able to identify them and put the mystery of their
disappearance to rest. Others were not quite so lucky and were left
wondering about the fate of their loved ones.
A dying health sector
Inside what remains of Gazas hospitals, things are worse than one can
imagine. Patients and the injured are strewn on the floor as doctors
move between them in an attempt to provide treatment to whoever they
can. Patients families carry plastic bags filled with intravenous
medications and raise them high so that they continue to flow. The
majority of stitching and suturing operations are performed without
anesthesia. Most drugs for chronic diseases are not available in
hospitals or private pharmacies. All kidney patients have suffered for
months due to the cessation of their dialysis treatments. Many have
died.
The stories coming out from Gaza City of doctors and nurses who had to
operate on their family members without anesthesia are haunting. In a
video posted on social media, Dr. Hani Bseiso recounts in pain how he
made the difficult decision to amputate his nieces leg with a kitchen
knife.
I had difficult choices: to let Ahed bleed to death or to use the
capabilities available to me and treat her, Dr. Bseiso says. I
decided to close my eyes and my heart, bite down on my pain, and do
what could not be done. He performed the operation on their homes
dining table. On hand was a kitchen knife, a dish sponge, water, and
soap.
Other than al-Shifa, all other hospitals in northern Gaza have been
destroyed, including Beit Hanoun Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital.
All of them were stormed by the army, their equipment ransacked, their
beds burned.
Muhammad Zaqout, General Director of Hospitals in the Gaza Strip, says
that while 35 hospitals were operating inside the Gaza Strip before
the war (13 of which were government hospitals), only 4 hospitals now
remain open in the entire coastal enclave.
The hospitals that are still operating are the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Hospital in Deir al-Balah, with a capacity of up to 140 beds; the
European Hospital in Khan Younis, with a capacity of up to 240 beds;
and al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, with a capacity of up to 65 beds,
Zaqout said. There is one specialized hospital for maternity, which
is the Emirates Maternity Hospital. The rest of the hospitals in the
Gaza Strip all stopped working and were stormed, destroyed, or
burned.
There is also no hospital left for children in the Gaza Strip,
Zaqout adds. All of which have gone out of service, such as al-Nasr
Hospital in Gaza City.
The few remaining hospitals in the Gaza Strip that are still
operational have only faced increased pressure, Zaqout said. The
European Hospital, now the largest hospital operating in the Strip,
has increased its capacity for patients from 240 beds to nearly 800
beds due to the ongoing pressure on the health sector in the Gaza
Strip. Thousands of displaced people inside the hospital transformed
many departments into housing departments.
The European Hospital has become a gathering hub for displaced
peoples tents. The corridors, patient rooms, courtyards, and
entrances are all crowded.
Organizations, institutions, and countries are trying to establish
field hospitals in different areas of the Gaza Strip, in addition to
hospitals and medical clinics such as the Jordanian field hospital in
the city of Rafah. Still, Zaqout points out that these field hospitals
cannot provide essential medical services that people rely on,
explaining that they do not have a source of generating oxygen.
Despite the vast number of injured people as a result of the repeated
bombing of all areas of the Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Gaza
can coordinate the discharge of 20-30 injured people daily for
treatment abroad in hospitals in Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and other
countries. But the number is minimal compared to the number of wounded
people who are in urgent need of treatment outside the Gaza Strip.
The situation is very catastrophic. Hospitals cannot accommodate the
wounded, and the numbers transported for treatment abroad are small
and not proportionate to the number of injuries, Zaqout maintains.
The health sector is terrible and is getting worse due to repeated
threats from the occupation to the remaining centers. If these
hospitals stop working, they will turn into mass graves, as with what
happened in Nasser and al-Shifa.
The Israeli army destroys the hospitals and prevents them from being
restarted, he adds. It prevents the re-entry of the medical
equipment it destroyed and prevents everything we need to restart
hospitals. The occupation is deliberately destroying the entire health
sector inside the Gaza Strip.
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/gazas-collapsing-health-system-is-one-of-the-goals-of-israels-genocide/
the spread of infectious disease, and the severe lack of medicine are
all part of the new normal for over two million people living in Gaza.
Last week, the Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry said that about
600,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip no longer have access to any
kind of healthcare. It also warned that medicine fridges and the only
oxygen plant in Gaza are at risk of shutting down due to the
systematic lack of fuel. The World Health Organization has said that
Israel is systematically dismantling the health system in Gaza. Save
The Children has reported that Israels attacks on the health sector
in Gaza have been higher than in any other conflict at the rate of
73 attacks per day.
But one of the most major blows that Gazas health system suffered was
in early April, following a two-week Israeli siege of al-Shifa
Hospital, leaving the medical compound completely and permanently
non-operational. The aftermath of the siege revealed that a massacre
had occurred. Mondoweiss gathered testimonies from survivors of how it
was carried out by Israeli soldiers, which included rounding up people
in the hospital, separating them into groups identified by
differently-colored bracelets, and executing one of the groups before
burying them in mass graves.
Al-Shifa was the largest Palestinian medical complex in all of
historic Palestine. Founded under the British Mandate in 1946, it grew
over the years until it became the Gaza Strips primary medical hub,
housing 25% of its medical staff. It was the beating heart of Gazas
health system.
Al-Shifa was the center of all medical services in the Strip. It was
the ultimate destination for complex medical conditions, Nebal
Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society
(PRCS), told Mondoweiss. It was also the training center of a large
number of medical students and practicing junior doctors.
During previous wars, al-Shifa was a hub for receiving complicated
injuries and the overload from other hospitals, as it had the most
complete equipment and a wide range of specialized doctors in most
medical fields, Farsakh added. Yet, al-Shifa was repeatedly
overwhelmed during the Israeli assaults of 2008 and 2014, which were
much shorter and caused much less casualties than the current
assault.
My 19-year-old cousin, Anas Abu Rass, lost his leg after bomb
shrapnel hit him while he was sleeping in his bedroom, Huda Amer, a
resident of Gaza City who continues to live there with her family,
told Mondoweiss. For this critical wound, in normal conditions, we
would have taken him to al-Shifa. Now he is being treated in a small
primary health care center where they dont have the equipment, and
they had to amputate his leg.
Most patients who have scheduled surgeries on the public health
insurance list were treated at al-Shifa. Now, they are all waiting
their turn in the remaining overcrowded hospitals and getting whatever
help they can in small clinics, like my cousin, she added.
The second largest hospital in the Strip after al-Shifa was the Nasser
Hospital in Khan Younis. Israeli forces besieged the hospital for
weeks at a time between February and April, targeting Palestinians
inside with sniper fire. In mid-February, Israeli forces raided the
hospital and forced medical staff and patients alike to leave its
premises, arresting hundreds.
The Israeli army withdrew from Khan Younis in early April. After the
withdrawal, Palestinians found hundreds of bodies buried in mass
graves in the hospitals vicinity, a repeat of al-Shifa. Many of the
bodies unearthed from the scene had medical catheters still attached
to their bodies, indicating that they had been patients. Others were
found with their hands bound by zip-ties with Hebrew labels on them.
Mondoweiss gathered testimonies from people who visited the mass
graves searching for missing relatives who had disappeared months
earlier. Some were able to identify them and put the mystery of their
disappearance to rest. Others were not quite so lucky and were left
wondering about the fate of their loved ones.
A dying health sector
Inside what remains of Gazas hospitals, things are worse than one can
imagine. Patients and the injured are strewn on the floor as doctors
move between them in an attempt to provide treatment to whoever they
can. Patients families carry plastic bags filled with intravenous
medications and raise them high so that they continue to flow. The
majority of stitching and suturing operations are performed without
anesthesia. Most drugs for chronic diseases are not available in
hospitals or private pharmacies. All kidney patients have suffered for
months due to the cessation of their dialysis treatments. Many have
died.
The stories coming out from Gaza City of doctors and nurses who had to
operate on their family members without anesthesia are haunting. In a
video posted on social media, Dr. Hani Bseiso recounts in pain how he
made the difficult decision to amputate his nieces leg with a kitchen
knife.
I had difficult choices: to let Ahed bleed to death or to use the
capabilities available to me and treat her, Dr. Bseiso says. I
decided to close my eyes and my heart, bite down on my pain, and do
what could not be done. He performed the operation on their homes
dining table. On hand was a kitchen knife, a dish sponge, water, and
soap.
Other than al-Shifa, all other hospitals in northern Gaza have been
destroyed, including Beit Hanoun Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital.
All of them were stormed by the army, their equipment ransacked, their
beds burned.
Muhammad Zaqout, General Director of Hospitals in the Gaza Strip, says
that while 35 hospitals were operating inside the Gaza Strip before
the war (13 of which were government hospitals), only 4 hospitals now
remain open in the entire coastal enclave.
The hospitals that are still operating are the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Hospital in Deir al-Balah, with a capacity of up to 140 beds; the
European Hospital in Khan Younis, with a capacity of up to 240 beds;
and al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, with a capacity of up to 65 beds,
Zaqout said. There is one specialized hospital for maternity, which
is the Emirates Maternity Hospital. The rest of the hospitals in the
Gaza Strip all stopped working and were stormed, destroyed, or
burned.
There is also no hospital left for children in the Gaza Strip,
Zaqout adds. All of which have gone out of service, such as al-Nasr
Hospital in Gaza City.
The few remaining hospitals in the Gaza Strip that are still
operational have only faced increased pressure, Zaqout said. The
European Hospital, now the largest hospital operating in the Strip,
has increased its capacity for patients from 240 beds to nearly 800
beds due to the ongoing pressure on the health sector in the Gaza
Strip. Thousands of displaced people inside the hospital transformed
many departments into housing departments.
The European Hospital has become a gathering hub for displaced
peoples tents. The corridors, patient rooms, courtyards, and
entrances are all crowded.
Organizations, institutions, and countries are trying to establish
field hospitals in different areas of the Gaza Strip, in addition to
hospitals and medical clinics such as the Jordanian field hospital in
the city of Rafah. Still, Zaqout points out that these field hospitals
cannot provide essential medical services that people rely on,
explaining that they do not have a source of generating oxygen.
Despite the vast number of injured people as a result of the repeated
bombing of all areas of the Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Gaza
can coordinate the discharge of 20-30 injured people daily for
treatment abroad in hospitals in Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and other
countries. But the number is minimal compared to the number of wounded
people who are in urgent need of treatment outside the Gaza Strip.
The situation is very catastrophic. Hospitals cannot accommodate the
wounded, and the numbers transported for treatment abroad are small
and not proportionate to the number of injuries, Zaqout maintains.
The health sector is terrible and is getting worse due to repeated
threats from the occupation to the remaining centers. If these
hospitals stop working, they will turn into mass graves, as with what
happened in Nasser and al-Shifa.
The Israeli army destroys the hospitals and prevents them from being
restarted, he adds. It prevents the re-entry of the medical
equipment it destroyed and prevents everything we need to restart
hospitals. The occupation is deliberately destroying the entire health
sector inside the Gaza Strip.
https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/gazas-collapsing-health-system-is-one-of-the-goals-of-israels-genocide/