Wounded Gazans wait in hope to be selected to receive treatment overseas
Afnan Barda has been living in excruciating pain since an Israeli air strike on October 23 left her with a fractured hip and dislocated knee.
Lying in an ambulance outside Al Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the 20-year-old is reminded by paramedics that she needs to stay still during her journey, which is to begin with a trip to the Rafah border crossing into Egypt.
She is then to be moved to Turkey for treatment.
“She has already gone through too much,” Ms Barda’s sister Mariam, who was joining her on her trip, told The National.
“Leaving Gaza is Afnan’s only chance of ever having a normal life again.
“She initially survived a bombing in her house in Beit Hanoun, after which she was displaced to our sister’s house in Beach camp, only to be struck again with a bomb and experience this immense pain.”
Since the Israel-Gaza war started on October 7, only 463 injured Palestinians have been evacuated through the Rafah crossing, the UN says.
Israel initially prevented any movement of people or goods across the border as part of a complete blockade of Gaza imposed at the start of the war. Under global pressure, it allowed the first wounded Gazans to leave the enclave on November 1.
Patients shortlisted for evacuation are selected by a committee of senior medics. So far, most of them have been women and children, including the seriously injured and those with life-threatening illnesses.
They have been admitted to hospitals in Egypt, Turkey, the UAE, Tunisia and elsewhere.
Gaza’s healthcare system, already suffering from a blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt in 2007 when Hamas took over the territory, has struggled to cope with the flood of casualties. The Israeli siege has kept hospitals from receiving medical supplies and the fuel needed to run their generators.
Ms Barda was first taken to Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza city, the largest in the enclave, where doctors were too overwhelmed to operate on her.
Israeli troops later stormed Al Shifa, which they said was hosting a Hamas command centre, an allegation the militant group denies.
Ms Barda and hundreds of other patients were moved to Al Khair Hospital in Khan Younis, which does not handle critical cases such as hers.
“They were very long and difficult days,” she said. “I have no break from the pain. At first, I took painkillers but eventually they lost effectiveness.
“Then the hospital collapsed. We were left with no food and drink. Doctors were so overwhelmed with the sheer number of wounded. I could barely speak to one.”
She was in the same ambulance as Rahma Abu Herbeid, 28, who was also taken to Al Shifa after being injured in an Israeli strike in late October.
With her leg in a cast held in place with metal pins, and with several burns across her body, Ms Abu Herbeid said her hopes of walking again rest on getting treatment outside Gaza.
“My chance of recovery lies in the ability to leave here,” she said.
The process for injured people to leave Gaza is “futile and slow”, said Dr Nahed Abu Teima, head of the surgical unit at Al Nasser.
“Ten or fewer wounded Gazans are allowed to travel out each day, which is a very small number compared to over 40,000 people who were wounded in the war,” he said.
That is in addition to the patients with serious illnesses “whose treatments were suspended be cause of the war”, he added. “Several wounded people were subjected to amputations of limbs as a result of poisoning or decay in tissues, and many may die waiting for treatment.”
Patients are selected for evacuation by a committee and sent to Egypt, Turkey, the UAE, Tunisia and elsewhere