Dead bodies flflood Gaza hospitals
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Hospitals in Gaza have been inundated with floods of dead bodies as Israeli airstrikes persist, following the collapse of a truce.
THE ongoing bombardment has left medical facilities overwhelmed and incapacitated.
Munir al-Bursh, Gaza’s Health Ministry director-general, expressed the dire situation, stating, “We are flooded with an influx of dead bodies. All our hospitals can no longer offer any kind of help to victims. All our medical equipment was destroyed by the Israeli occupation soldiers.”
He further highlighted the imminent power outage at Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza, indicating a critical shortage of essential resources. The targeting of ambulances and medics, including an incident where a healthcare worker was shot while transporting a victim to al-Awda Hospital, has compounded the challenges.
Out of 40 000 injured individuals, only 400 managed to reach the Rafah crossing in the south, according to the director. Al-Bursh condemned the Israeli actions, emphasizing, “This is a belligerent murderous enemy; with one target only: killing civilians in cold blood.”
Amidst the airstrikes, more than half of Gaza’s homes have been destroyed or damaged since October 7, intensifying the humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory. Israel’s assaults have also led to the closure of most hospitals in Gaza and inflicted severe damage on civilian infrastructure across the enclave.
The escalation of Israeli military movements towards Khan Younis from the east has further compounded the crisis. Tanks and armored vehicles advancing along the eastern side of Salah al-Din highway have split Khan Younis, prompting the Israeli military to issue evacuation orders to residents in a coercive manner.
Residents in the area, witnessing heavy bombardment, reported the devastation caused by relentless airstrikes and artillery shelling over the past two days. The situation remains tense as Israeli forces press on, exacerbating the plight of civilians caught up in Israel’s massive air strikes and heavy artillery shelling that has been going on for the past days.
From Rabat it is reported that Israeli occupation forces continue to target civilians, including in hospitals across Gaza, “flooding” them with dead bodies.
The spokesperson of Gaza’s Health Ministry Ashraf alQudra condemned the situation, stressing that the Israeli occupation is “…bombing hospitals in Gaza to put them out of service.”
The health official, according to Al Jazeera, also accused Israeli occupation forces of creating a “circle of death.”
On Monday, Palestine’s Prime Minister Mohammed Shtayyeh accused Israeli occupation of being driven by the “instinct of revenge to cut off lifeline to Palestinian people” in Gaza.
Shtayyeh made his remarks during the weekly cabinet meeting, condemning the resumption of the Israeli machine of killing, “destruction, and genocide” targeting children, women and the elderly.
“No words are useful, no screaming is useful, no numbers are useful, and the cries of children are not audible, and the suffering of the wounded is not felt by the Israeli criminal machines. These crimes must stop immediately,” he said.
He emphasised that threats and war statements by Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu are something that Palestinians have been experiencing every day through “settlement, seizure of ands, piracy of our money, repeated incursions, murder and genocide arming the colonists, and the storming of Al-Aqsa Mosque, and we feel it with the incitement against the president, and against all of us.”
Shtayyeh denounced countries that continue to oppose a complete ceasefire, and that are satisfied with “less killing” of Palestinians.
“It is unfortunate and shameful for these calls to kill a smaller number of people and for the destruction to be less. Such positions are a legalisation of murder. The world must demand that Israel stop the aggression, killing and destruction immediately,” he said.
Since the fragile truce in the Gaza Strip collapsed on 1 December, aerial and ground attacks by Israeli forces have resulted in hundreds of people killed and injured.
Two hospitals supported by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) – Al-Aqsa in the Middle Area and Nasser in the south of the Strip – where MSF Palestinian and international staff are working and living - are barely able to cope with the influx of hundreds of injured patients.
“We hear bombing around us, day and night,” says Katrien Claeys, MSF team leader in Gaza’s Middle Area, where MSF teams support local health workers in treating people with blast injuries and burns. “In the last 48 hours, over 100 dead and over 400 injured people arrived at the emergency room of Al-Aqsa hospital. Some patients were taken for surgery right away.”
When injured patients overflow the hospital, services treating people whose conditions are not immediately life-threatening must be deprioritised.
“We see patients with signs of infection and necrotic tissue, as they have not received a change of wound dressing in days and sometimes weeks,” says Claeys.
MSF teams have set up a temporary wound dressing unit within Al-Aqsa hospital to provide wound management to patients with chronic wounds, or injuries from domestic accidents or previous attacks.
Nasser hospital, in Khan Younis, where MSF teams provide surgical care to patients with trauma and burn injuries, is now at breaking point due to the continuous influx of new patients.
“The hospital has been receiving multiple severely injured patients nearly every hour,” says Chris Hook, MSF medical coordinator in Khan Younis. “With the situation as it is in the hospital – there is no available space anymore – it really is a terrible situation. Everyone is genuinely worried about what will come next.”
As Israel’s aerial and ground offensives move south, people in some neighbourhoods in the Middle Area and Khan Younis have been ordered to evacuate further south, towards Rafah, along the Egyptian border. We have had to suspend our medical support to Martyrs and Beni Suhaila clinics, as they are located in areas under the evacuation order.
“Every day, Israeli authorities order a new neighbourhood to evacuate, asking people to move to another city, further and further south,” says an internally displaced member of MSF staff in Khan Younis. “Even during the truce, people were not allowed to go back north to their homes. Only three or four neighbourhoods remain accessible and all of them are overcrowded.”
The majority of 1,8 million internally displaced people in the Strip have sought shelter in the south of Gaza, where they currently live in appalling conditions. Many
civilians have already been displaced several times since 7 October. They have nowhere to go to as nowhere is safe.
Gaining access to essential services, including healthcare, has become extremely challenging for people in the south of Gaza. Tight movement restrictions, imposed by the Israeli forces and ongoing heavy shelling and bombing, prevent people from seeking medical help in time, while also hindering our teams’ capacity to respond.
Back in Nasser hospital, the number of displaced people has markedly increased again since last Saturday, with new shelters being set up in every corner of the car park. Many people are sleeping on the floor next to the medical facility.
“In a military campaign that has lasted weeks, with only a brief respite, the speed and scale of the bombing continue to plumb the depths of brutality”, says Hook. “Almost two million people are left without options. The only solution is an immediate and sustained ceasefire and the unrestricted supply of aid to the entirety of the Gaza strip.”
A Norwegian activist and doctor has blamed world leaders for the killing of civilians in Israel’s attacks on Gaza.
“President Biden, Mr. Blinken, are you awake? EU President Dr. Ursula von der Leyen, President Macron, can you hear these screams from Gaza yesterday?” Mads Gilbert said in a video he shared on the social media platform X.
Gilbert, who has worked for 16 years at Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in the Gaza Strip, recalled that Israel bombed a UN school and shelter in the region, killing 700 civilians, 70 percent of them women and children.
“You do nothing, you do less than nothing, you actively support the Israeli war machine and their killing,” the doctor lashed out, as he said that 15 000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza so far.
The activist blamed world leaders for allowing the killings, and even supporting them with weapons, political support and inaction.
“The industrial scale of killing in Gaza reminds many of us of the industrial horrible scale of killing of Jews by the Nazi German army in 1940-1945. This is not self-defense for Israel, this is an all-out genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank,” Gilbert asserted.
He denounced “politics of elimination, systematic killing with industrial scale, and military attacks on an unprotected Palestinian civilian population.”
“You are responsible. You are writing your names in the darkest blackest pages of the history books,” Gilbert hammered, and added: “You are complicit and you will be accountable.”
The doctor called for putting an end to the killings, lifting the siege, announcing an immediate cease-fire, and protecting hospitals and health care workers.
He also stressed the need for water, food, medical supplies, and fuel.
“It is happening on your call. You are responsible. Stop Israel mass murder and genocide in Gaza,” Gilbert said.
The Israeli army resumed bombing the Gaza Strip last Friday after declaring an end to a weeklong humanitarian pause.-tasnimnews.com,