‘SPIRITS HIGH’ AT SOUTHERN GAZA HOSPITAL UNDER ISRAELI SIEGE

▶ About 170 people remain at Al Amal medical centre in Khan Younis, which was raided by military last month

A fire burns and the air is filled with dust inside Al Amal Hospital after an Israeli strike.

Wiring is exposed through holes in the walls of damaged rooms that are now empty of patients.

The Palestine Red Crescent-run hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis was once considered a haven by more than 16,000 displaced people, who sought refuge there for months after the war started.

That changed as Israel intensified its operations in the south, until finally, Israeli soldiers stormed the hospital’s courtyard and then the medical centre on January 31, in a raid that continued for more than a week.

Most people inside the hospital – including patients and their relatives, children and the elderly – were ordered to leave.

Those who remain – about 170 people, including a skeleton crew of 65 hospital staff – continue to face attacks, such as one last Tuesday, footage of which was shared on Instagram by the Red Crescent.

Ranging in age from six days to 84 years, the patients, volunteers and medical staff, along with their families, survive on bread made in the hospital and canned food.

“We were prepared for days like these,” Osama Kahlout, who ran the hospital’s control room, told The National.

He has since fled to Rafah, after continuing to work at the hospital through 112 days of war, but keeps in touch with the staff by radio.

Mr Kahlout said the raid on the hospital was “indescribably humiliating”.

The Red Crescent published photos that it said showed wounds from torture that its staff had suffered at the hands of Israeli troops.

The Israeli army did not immediately respond to The National‘s request for comment.

More than 29,600 people have been killed in Gaza since the war began, the enclave’s Health Ministry says.

Israel’s air and ground campaign began after Hamas, the militant group that governs Gaza, killed about 1,200 people and took 240 hostages in an attack on southern Israeli communities on October 7.

Gaza’s health sector has been devastated during the war, with most of its hospitals having been put out of operation.

Mr Kahlout said Israeli snipers are stationed outside Al Amal Hospital, making it dangerous for people to leave. “You can’t even step one metre outside without getting shot.”

He told the story of Hedaya Hamad, director of the hospital’s youth and volunteers department, who was killed on February 2 while trying to rescue displaced people after they had come under Israeli fire.

“While attempting to move from building to building, she was shot in the neck and chest,” Mr Kahlout said.

Ms Hamad is among at least 30 people who were buried in the hospital grounds because the morgue was full, he added.

Despite the siege and Israeli troops using quadcopters to fire into the hospital, and facing dwindling supplies of food and water, Mr Kahlout said his team remain in good spirits.

“With [phone] communications down for 38 days, we mainly communicate via VHF [very high frequency radio], when the signal is good enough.”

He said he speaks to the team every day, sometimes several times, but their conversations are monitored.

“Israeli forces stationed outside the hospital sometimes interject with derogatory remarks or insults.”

Part of his job is to try to lift the spirits of the men and women running what remains of the once-bustling hospital.

“We sometimes make jokes. I try to cheer them up and reminisce about the funny moments we lived through together.”

More importantly, Mr Kahlout said, they are continuing to provide care for their patients.

“We find ways. We manage.”