Dozens of injured women, children and men lie on the floor in the crowded corridors of Gaza’s hospitals. Family members lean over motionless bodies, holding hands or trying to comfort the children. In addition, doctors fight for the lives of other injured people.
Videos and photos document the desperate scenes. Recordings of doctors operating in dim light using only flashlight light also circulate.
➤ Read more: A hospital as a protective shield for Hamas – is this possible?
© Image: AHMED AL ARINI via Portal
“The situation is catastrophic”
“The situation at Al-Ahli Hospital is catastrophic,” says the doctor Ghassan Abu Sitta on Sunday. “Today I performed more than ten very painful surgical procedures on people without anesthesia.” There are also no more blood supplies. Al-Ahli Hospital is the only hospital in Gaza City that is still operational.
Previously, he worked at Shifa Hospital, the largest clinic in the coastal strip. Operations had to be halted there over the weekend.
➤ See more information: Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza remains under massive fire
Horrible conditions at Shifa Clinic
At Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest hospital, the World Health Organization complained of “terrible conditions”. There are more than 2,000 people at the clinic, including likely more than 600 patients and about 1,500 displaced people, the WHO wrote on the website. platform on Monday X citing the Palestinian Ministry of Health.
Consequently, patients could no longer receive dialysis, among other things. Premature babies were also transferred to operating rooms without incubators.
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“Continued shootings and shelling in the area have worsened already critical conditions,” wrote the WHO Director-General. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus in a separate post on X: “Tragically, the number of deaths among patients has increased significantly.”
The WHO was able to establish contact with the clinic’s health team. The hospital no longer functions as a hospital. There must be an immediate ceasefire.
➤ See more information: Israel: Help evacuate babies from Al-Shifa clinic on Sunday
“Please do something”
The situation at clinics across the Gaza Strip already working on the attack has worsened dramatically in recent days. According to the WHO, almost a third of hospitals are still in use due to heavy bombing. There is a lack of fuel, food and medical supplies.
According to the humanitarian organization, a Doctors Without Borders nurse wrote from the basement of Shifa Hospital: “We are being killed here, please do something.”
Hamas command center under the clinic?
Israel’s military accuses Hamas of deliberately abusing hospitals for military purposes and of deliberately positioning itself near hospitals. The Israeli military suspects that Shifa Hospital is a Hamas command and operations center. Local people fear that the building could soon be subject to a large-scale Israeli operation.
Speaking to British broadcaster BBC, a senior doctor at the clinic also denied the Israeli side’s claim that Hamas fighters were at the hospital. That was “a big lie,” said chief surgeon Marwan Abu Saada. “We have medical personnel, we have patients and displaced people. Just it.”
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The Israeli military had previously claimed that Hamas – which uses an extensive network of tunnels under the coastal zone for its own purposes – had a command center under the clinic and was also misusing other medical facilities in the Gaza Strip for its own purposes. military.
Escape route
For the first time, the army also opened an escape route between Shifa Hospital and the main road to the south. Additionally, the military says it should help babies in the children’s ward get “to a safer hospital.” The hospital staff would have requested this. This could not be independently verified at this time. However, according to eyewitnesses, thousands of people from the north headed south again.
But escape is not possible for everyone. “We are talking about patients who are extremely difficult to transport. People in intensive care, people on life support, babies who need oxygen,” said a Red Cross spokeswoman, Alyona Synenkothe North American broadcaster CNN.
The White House national security adviser said on Sunday that the US has urged Israel to avoid fighting near hospitals in the Gaza Strip.
“America does not want hospital battles where innocent people and patients receiving medical care are caught in the crossfire,” Jake Sullivan told CBS.