Doctors in Gaza say patients arriving at hospitals are showing signs of illness due to overcrowding and poor sanitation after more than 1.4 million people fled their homes for emergency shelters due to Israel’s worstever bombing are.
Aid groups have repeatedly warned of a health crisis in the small, crowded Palestinian enclave, which is under an Israeli blockade that has cut off electricity, drinking water and fuel and allowed only small convoys carrying UN food and medicine.
“The crowding of civilians and the fact that most schools used as emergency shelters are full of people are fertile ground for the spread of disease,” said Nahed Abu Taaema, a public health doctor at Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis.
According to Palestinian officials, about 5,800 people were killed by Israeli air and artillery strikes that followed the Oct. 7 attack by Hamas militants who invaded Israel, killing more than 1,400 people and taking more than 200 hostages.
Israel has told all residents of the northern half of the 28milelong Gaza Strip to move south, but its attacks have leveled districts across the enclave.
As all hospitals run out of fuel to run their generators, doctors warn that vital equipment such as newborn incubators are at risk of being shut down.
The Hamasrun health ministry said 40 medical centers had suspended operations as shelling and displacement put enormous pressure on the system.
The World Health Organization warned that a third of Gaza’s hospitals were not functioning. “We are on our knees demanding this sustained, expanded and protected humanitarian operation,” said Rick Brennan, head of WHO’s regional emergency department.
The private Indonesian hospital, the largest in northern Gaza, said on Tuesday that it had closed all but the last vital departments such as the intensive care unit.
The only other hospital still treating patients in northern Gaza, Beit Hanoun Hospital, suspended operations due to heavy shelling in the city, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
“If the hospital does not receive fuel, it would be a death sentence for patients in northern Gaza,” said Atef alKahlout, director of the hospital.
SICK CHILDREN
In the shelters where displaced Palestinians huddle with their families hoping to protect themselves from the bombs, people are starting to suffer from stomach problems, lung infections and skin rashes, said Abu Taaema of Nasser Hospital.
“It’s hot in the tent under the midday sun and there are insects… It’s cold at night and there aren’t enough blankets for everyone. The children are all sick,” said Sojood Najm, a woman who lives in a UN children’s home.
She fled her home in Gaza City with her husband and three children and has been living in a tent for nine days without showering. “Every day I cry to my mother,” Najm said.
At one pharmacy, the owner said there were only a few products left. People were stocking up on overthecounter medications, but there was concern that treatment options for chronic illnesses could be running out.
While health concerns are increasing, it is still the intensification of bombing that is causing the greatest suffering in Gaza.
After an airstrike on Khan Younis, Abdallah Tabash held his dead daughter Sidra and refused to let go while holding her bloodstained face and hair. “I want to watch them as often as possible,” he said.
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