Residents in Gaza are photographed next to an ambulance following search and rescue operations.Photo:Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu via Getty
Mustafa Hassona/Anadolu via Getty
Plastic surgeon Dr. Mohamed Ziara described the scene at Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, the Gaza Strip’s largest hospital, as “complete chaos," noting that “tens of thousands” of injured people were still arriving as of Friday, with “no place to leave a foot" in the hospital, per NBC News.
At Nasser Hospital, which is the second-largest in Gaza City, Dr. Mohammed Qandil told NBC News that the location has opened “tents” outside of the hospital to treat more patients and that the hospital ultimately had to decide “if these tents will have to be for the critical patients, patient post-op, or the patient who will go after finishing their management.”
“This is like a humanity crisis,” Qandil said, adding that medical supplies are low and doctors have to decide which patients are most in need of ventilators.
Destroyed buildings in Gaza following airstrikes on Oct. 12, 2023.Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty
Abed Rahim Khatib/Anadolu via Getty
Qandil also told the outlet that fuel is running low and internet access is at risk, potentially putting the hospital in jeopardy.
“Even in the next few hours we might lose the last store of fuel, so the hospital will shut down completely," he told NBC. “And then even the wifi connection, which is very weak, we will lose it so we will be severed totally from the world.”
Another doctor at Dar Al-Shifa Hospital, Dr. Ahmad Almoqadam, told ABC News this week that there is a shortage of water, medication, and blood for transfusions at the hospital. The lack of medical supplies and gauzes, Almoqadam told the outlet, will “afflict the health of the patient.”
Some patients are without hospital beds and some locals are also sheltering in the hospital due to their homes being destroyed, Almoqadam also said, adding that he too is without a home after finding it destroyed on Wednesday.
“There’s more people and the more and more injured people and they need medical help on surgeries or orthopedic intervention or intervention due to a variety of explosive injury and traumas and variety of the people who were injured,” Almoqadam added. “There is no discrimination in the types of the people.”
On Thursday, theWorld Health Organizationsaid that local hospitals in Gaza were at their “breaking point,” with fuel “due to run out,” shortages of medical supplies, and a focus on “lifesaving emergency care,” impacting those who require other “essential health services.”
WHO also said they have documented 34 “attacks on health care in Gaza since last Saturday,” which killed 11 health workers dead, injured 16 and damaged 19 health facilities and 20 ambulances.
This week,The Associated Pressreported that Al Shifa’s morgue, which typically holds 30 bodies at a time, had overflowed on Thursday, with bodies being stacked on top of each other, some in the parking lot, as a nurse called the site a “graveyard.”
Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières) toldABC Newsthis week that many of their patients at Gaza City clinics are children with “the majority of the injured in Gaza are women and children, since they are the ones who are most often in the houses that get destroyed in the airstrikes,” according to deputy project coordinator in Gaza, Ayman Al-Djaroucha.
Palestinians inspect a destroyed building on Oct. 14 following Israeli airstrikes.Abed Rahim Khatib/picture alliance via Getty
Abed Rahim Khatib/picture alliance via Getty
“We are talking about more than a million human beings,” MSF shared in a statementposted on their website on Friday,in reference to the call for evacuations. “‘Unprecedented’ doesn’t even cover the medical humanitarian impact of this. Gaza is being flattened, thousands of people are dying. This must stop now. We condemn Israel’s demand in the strongest possible terms.”
On Friday, theIsrael Defense Forcesissued a press release that called “for the evacuation of all civilians of Gaza City from their homes southwards for their own safety and protection and move to the area south of the Wadi Gaza."
“The Hamas terrorist organization waged a war against the State of Israel and Gaza City is an area where military operations take place,” the IDF statement read. “This evacuation is for your own safety.”
The IDF further said that Hamas terrorists in the city are hiding in tunnels underneath houses and in buildings with innocent civilians, calling for residents to “distance” themselves from members of Hamas “who are using you as human shields.”
The evacuation orders followed Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s own announcement that Israel was “putting a complete siege on Gaza" following Hamas' surprise attacks on Israeli civilians last weekend.
The announcement meant “no electricity, no food, no water, no gas" for the area, according to astatement sharedto X (formerly Twitter) on Monday.
Asreported Friday, 1,300 people, including 27 Americans, have been killed in the Hamas attacks in Israel,NBC Newssaid, citing U.S. officials. The Palestinian Ministry of Health also previously shared that 1,537 people had been killed in Gaza.
source: people.com
