Elda Baggio, surgeon, vice president of Doctors Without Borders. He has worked for Doctors Without Borders for 13 years; He conducted missions in Yemen, Haiti, Gaza, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iraq, Burundi and Somalia.
1. Can you describe the humanitarian situation in Gaza? We know that it is dramatic: no fuel, no electricity, no food, no drinking water, very little medical care. What are the most serious problems facing hospitals in Gaza and how should they be addressed?
Although hospitals in Gaza are not all of the same standard, they are similar to those in the West and rely on technology and therefore electricity. Even before October 7, Gazans had access to electricity for four hours a day; Therefore, both hospitals and private homes functioned thanks to generators. I was in Gaza in 2018 and we had a generator to have electricity at home all day. The problem of lack of fuel causes the fuel generator to not work and therefore no light. But it’s not so much the light, but all the medical equipment. The photo in which all the children were taken out of the warming cradles and placed next to each other to warm up caused a stir.
Without thinking about the war wounded, think about the sick who no longer undergo dialysis and are dying of kidney failure, those who suffer from respiratory failure and require oxygen or electromedical equipment that cannot be made functional. Thereafter There are an enormous number of injured people for whom it is now almost impossible to receive adequate care. Except in some hospitals, such as Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, where a team of Doctors Without Borders has recently been stationed, and also the Red Cross for the others Working is impossible. The operating room doesn’t work, the patients can’t sleep because they need a ventilator that doesn’t work without electricity. It is possible to provide manual ventilation, but this would require a health worker to take care of the ventilation of each patient, as there are very few ventilators among the Palestinians who remain there and the staff sent by MSF.
Yesterday, in the Al-Awda Hospital bombingthe hospital I worked at the most when I was there, they were on the fourth and fifth floors and Two doctors from the Médecins Sans Frontières team and another doctor died in a hospital that was already collapsing. Please note that Médecins Sans Frontières had clearly communicated the coordinates of the hospital to the Israeli Defense Forces. Now we’ve gotten to the point where even Providing coordinates is useless, hospitals are a target and I am even those that don’t say that there are tunnels in the basement because nothing like this has ever been said about Al-Awda Hospital. But yesterday two doctors from Doctors Without Borders, Dr. Mahmoud Abu Nujaila and Dr. Ahmad Al Sahar, together with Dr. killed. Ziad Al-Tatari in a bomb attack on a hospital whose coordinates were in the hands of the Israeli army.
2. Médecins Sans Frontières is always present in war zones and I would like to ask you whether, in your view, what is happening in Gaza stands out compared to other past or ongoing conflicts. While considering your first-hand experiences in contexts such as Yemen, Iraq and Syria, I ask you whether you are aware of other situations in which hospitals, medical staff and patients have been targeted by warring parties?
If you will allow me to be a little light-hearted: When I first started studying humanitarian surgery, I picked up a book that, along with other texts, is important for those who study humanitarian surgery: “World Surgery and World Surgery. It is published by the International Red Cross. Reading the entire introductory chapter on humanitarian law, one came across a list of things not to do, including, as an example, the bombing of the Swedish Red Cross column by Mussolini’s Italians. In Italy they say not to shoot at the Red Cross, and I thought the anecdote came from there. We Italians were bombing, and there were already humanitarian laws in place, a Red Cross column.
Apart from this, In 2015, the Kunduz hospital in Afghanistan was bombed. An entire hospital was bombed with the idea that there were one or two leaders of terrorist organizations. Even there, the coordinates were known to all the armies on the ground and there were almost an hour of phone calls between the hospital’s security officers asking, “What are you doing?” You’re bombing a hospital, stop it.” The hospital was bombed anyway.
Hospitals are unfortunately a target despite humanitarian laws, and as Human Rights Watch says, no one pays for their work. Does anyone pay if you violate international humanitarian law? The rebel groups don’t even have to respect humanitarian laws; they are not a state. But states should be obliged to respect the laws of humanitarian law.
Hospitals are being shot at. Now, in this context, there is a bit too much shooting.
3. The eyes of Doctors Without Borders are valuable because they have always been close to the facts: My question is, what vision of this situation would you like not to have had?
We wish we hadn’t seen all the wounded and dead. Aside from that, I believe this is one of the humanitarian crises in which the number of dead children is the highest, because the average age of the population living in Gaza is very low, there are many young people and the number of dead children is around 5,000. This is of course a number that needs to be checked, but it is definitely very high. We wouldn’t have wanted to see that, just like we didn’t want to see many other things.
We desperately want a ceasefire and not a ceasefire like the one that has been granted, from 3 to 5 days, which will probably be 4. An exchange of each hostage for three Palestinian prisoners as long as they are not guilty of murder, women and children first. A 24-hour window was then provided for anyone to appeal this agreement to Israel’s Supreme Court, which is extremely worrying. In addition to the exchange between the 150 Palestinian prisoners and the 50 hostages, the agreement also provides for the handover of humanitarian aid, which should finally flow in sufficient numbers. Compared to the 300/400 trucks that drove past before, this is now just a pittance.
One of the things that is not sufficiently stigmatized is the fact that Gaza is a refugee camp. Gaza has been a refugee camp since 1948 under the responsibility of UNWRA, the UN agency only for Palestinians. This means that Gaza is completely dependent on external aid. Therefore, everything needed and consumed in Gaza comes from external aid, from electromedical equipment to the food people eat to gasoline. It’s an unimaginable situation. There are no water desalination plants, so there is no drinking water. I don’t think they’ve been reported yet Cases of cholera This comes right after the drinking water runs out. When there is no longer any clean drinking water, epidemics occur.
4. I come to a topic that offends the public’s sensibilities. After learning the numbers of children killed or injured, one can only describe them as horrific. How do medical staff treat children? Is there a process for those who no longer have a family, identified by the acronym WCNSF (Wounded Child No Surviving Family)?
This is a problem that occurs with all wars and natural disasters. Similar situations occurred in Syria after the earthquake that hit a southern region where there were displaced people following the caliphate. Normally the Red Cross takes care of this situation, similar to what happened in Europe after World War II when the Red Cross was busy looking for family members or someone who could care for children left without a guardian.
This scenario is quite distant in Gaza. Currently, the injured children, who have no family and no one to care for them, find themselves in an even more dramatic situation than others. What we are talking about is part of the aftermath, an aftermath that we cannot see the beginning of because it is a four-day ceasefire and after that it has already been declared that they will start bombing again. This is not a ceasefire. Doctors Without Borders, together with all associations that deal with humanitarian issues and together with many states, are calling for a ceasefire, which is not coming, that is a ceasefire, better than nothing, but a ceasefire.
5. Finally, I ask you whether MSF feels supported by the international community and public opinion. Italy, for example, has not made an explicit demand for a ceasefire. What should be done better or differently?
Doctors Without Borders strongly calls for a ceasefire. Doctors Without Borders Italy is asking for it, the movement is asking for it, with the five operational centers in Europe and all the partner sections represented in the European countries.
If by support we mean that those close to us agree with the action we take, then yes.
If by support we mean that someone else bigger and stronger than us can do something, then, as the facts show, no.
November 22, 2023