Gaza hospitals struggling to cope with air strikes, blockade
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[October 16, 2023]
By Nidal al-Mughrabi
GAZA (Reuters) - As Gaza residents brace for an Israeli ground
offensive, after days of intense air strikes and a blockade, in response
to the attack by the Palestinian militant group Hamas, health ministry
official Ashraf Al-Qidra wonders how hospitals will cope.
Doctors have been scrambling to help a rising number of patients,
including children injured in the air strikes, in overcrowded hospitals
that are running short on medicines and fuel due to the blockade. Only
the most acute cases are getting surgery because there are not enough
resources, doctors say.
Hospitals across the enclave have only 24 hours more of fuel reserves,
putting thousands of patients at risk, the U.N. humanitarian office (OCHA)
said on Monday.
At least 2,750 Palestinians have been killed and 9,700 wounded since
Oct. 7, the health ministry said on Monday. Another 1,000 people were
missing and believed to be under rubble.
Qidra appealed to people to head to the Shifa hospital, the largest of
the territory's 13 public medical facilities, to donate blood.
"If the hospital stops working, the whole world will be responsible for
the lives of hundreds and thousands of patients who rely on our
services, especially from Shifa," said Qidra.
Shifa serves the entire Gaza Strip but more directly the around 800,000
people who live in Gaza City.
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Israel is conducting its heaviest ever air strikes and is expected to
launch a ground offensive in Gaza, one of the most densely populated
areas in the world with 2.3 million people.
It has vowed to annihilate Hamas in retaliation for a rampage by its
fighters in Israeli towns nine days ago in which its militants shot men,
women and children and seized hostages in the worst attack on civilians
in the country's history.
About 1,300 people were killed in the surprise onslaught, with graphic
mobile phone footage and reports from medical and emergency services of
atrocities in the overrun towns and kibbutzes.
'THIS IS SO HARD'
Some Palestinians have fled their homes in Gaza City after the Israeli
military warned them to head south.
But some people have said they were in danger of Israeli air strikes on
that journey, and some are returning north due to insecurity and a lack
of anywhere to stay in an increasingly overcrowded south.
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A Palestinian kidney patient lies on a hospital bed, as health
officials say they are running out of fuel to operate dialysis
devices, amid the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict, at Naser
hospital in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip October 15, 2023.
REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
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The Israeli military was not available for comment.
Palestinians in Gaza said Israel's bombing campaign overnight was
the heaviest since it launched its retaliatory attacks. Bombardment
was especially heavy in Gaza City, with air strikes hitting the
areas around two of the city's main hospitals, they said.
Saeed Al-Abdala was lying on a hospital bed hooked to a dialysis
machine. He escaped bombing at his home in Khan Younis.
"I am getting kidney dialysis, and this process is very challenging,
we suffer a lot. We suffer from transportation and moving around,"
he said.
"And now we are under war, war is destruction and death and torture.
We are displaced from our houses and we are no longer in our homes.
This is so hard."
Diplomatic efforts are underway to try to open an
Egyptian-controlled border crossing into Gaza, with foreign aid
donations being delivered to the Egyptian side.
In Khan Younis's Nasser Hospital, in the southern Gaza Strip, where
ambulances carrying casualties continue to arrive, patients with
chronic diseases face the prospect of medical devices failing.
"We have 220 (kidney) patients. Half of the devices will go out of
service tonight and we will not be able to do dialysis for all of
them," said doctor Mohammed Zaqout. "This is a human catastrophe."
Kidney patient Nahed Al-Khuzundar, who was forced to flee with his
family from Gaza City to Khan Younis, said he had to take three
dialysis sessions per week but has so far had none.
"My legs began to swell, I feel suffocated, and I need dialysis
urgently," Khuzundar told Reuters as he waited outside the kidney
department at Khan Younis hospital, where dozens of wounded have
been arriving, along with the bodies of the dead.
(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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