At Gaza’s Dar Shifa hospital, the main medical facility in the besieged Palestinian territory, exhausted doctors treating victims of Israeli bombings are struggling with severe power shortages, aging equipment and dwindling supplies.
It’s not just the injured who come to the hospital. Its corridors are crowded with Gaza families seeking refuge from Israeli airstrikes since Saturday as Hamas militants launch a devastating assault on the Jewish state.
“There is not even standing room for one more patient, let alone a bed,” said Allam Nayef, one of the anesthetists. “The operating room is working non-stop, we have Waiting list of 150 orthopedic surgery patients.
“We are short of injectable antibiotics and low on fuel. Soon we will have to decide who to treat and who to leave based on their chances of survival.”
Palestinian officials said Thursday that air strikes in Gaza have killed 1,417 people, including 447 children, and injured 6,268 others. They warned that the region’s already troubled health system was now “starting to collapse”.
The Hamas attack, the worst in Israel’s history, has plunged the Jewish state and sparked a war with Hamas that has killed at least 1,200 Israeli civilians and soldiers and injured more than 3,000, according to government officials. .
The pain at Dar al-Shifa’s overwhelmed hospital reflects the rapidly deteriorating humanitarian situation across Gaza. Gaza has been controlled by Hamas since 2007. The strip is home to 2.3 million people, almost half of whom are children.
Since Saturday, Israel has sealed off the area, which Palestinians and human rights groups have long described as an “open-air prison.” It also cut off supplies of water, electricity, goods and fuel.
Israel’s energy and infrastructure minister said no humanitarian aid will be provided to Gaza until Hamas releases dozens of hostages kidnapped over the weekend.
“Until the Israeli hostages return, no power switches will be turned on, no fire hydrants will be opened, and no fuel trucks will enter,” he wrote on social media. Gaza’s only power plant shut down on Wednesday after running out of fuel.
Gaza has endured four wars between Hamas and Israel since 2007 and is still recovering from the last war two years ago. Residents fear the war could be the worst yet.
Israeli military chief Hezi Halevi said on Thursday that the territory was being “attacked with all our strength and we will not stop here”. He also warned that Gaza would “look different” after the war. Many expected a ground attack to eliminate Hamas.
Air strikes by Israeli warplanes have leveled the entire area. When warned of an impending Israeli attack, dazed residents ran from their homes and carried their children through streets strewn with rubble and glass to escape the bombardment. About 250,000 people took refuge in crowded United Nations schools, while an unknown number sought refuge with family and friends.
Fadi Abu Shammalah, head of the General Union of Civil Society Cultural Centers, tried to evacuate his family through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt. But on Tuesday, after hours of waiting, Israeli airstrikes nearby led to the closure of the crossing.
Cairo said on Thursday that the borders were open, but generally only travelers with prior permission could enter Egypt. Cairo has expressed alarm at Palestinians fleeing Gaza and suspects that is what the Israeli government wants.
Egyptian officials have reportedly rejected proposals from the United States and other countries to create a humanitarian corridor for Palestinians fleeing to Egypt. Cairo has invited donor governments to fly aid into the Sinai Peninsula so it can reach Gaza through the Rafah crossing. But Israel has warned it will attack trucks delivering supplies to the territory.
After failing to get his family into Egypt, Abu Shamala took them to his parents’ home in Khan Younis, south of Gaza. He said 13 people were crowded into a small apartment and “heard intense bombings day and night.”
They still had a few days of water left. But due to the power outage, their food spoiled in the refrigerator. Portable rechargeable batteries are rarely used to power routers and some lights.
Abu Shamala said that when he returned to Gaza City, he no longer recognized the bombing of his area. “I lived there for ten years, but the streets are not the same anymore and the houses are not the same anymore,” he said. “What is happening is a cleansing of Western Gaza.”
Jason Shawa, a translator in Gaza, said he has brought four families into his three-bed home, where they ration water and electricity from solar panels. When he ventured to the local grocery store just 200 meters from his home, the scale of the damage was so extensive that he couldn’t even identify the store.
“I don’t know where it is,” he said. “Whole blocks were torn apart – it looked like Berlin in 1945. The houses and streets in every block were torn apart.”
People near his home knocked on the door, asking for a place to stay. Some even asked if they could sleep in the garden.
Those stores that are still open have long been out of fresh produce, with canned beans, tuna and dried pasta now staples. But the shelves looked empty. Grocers say their wholesalers are running low on supplies.
Shava is also trying to comfort his two daughters. “Why are the Israelis killing us?” Malak, 6, kept asking.
As Israeli air strikes continue, the situation in the territory looks set to deteriorate further.
Adnan Abu Hasna, media adviser to UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees, noted that Gaza “does not have the capacity to store food or fuel.” “It survives every day on supplies trucked in from Israel, and now that has stopped,” he said.
Ghassan Abu Sittah, a Palestinian-British surgeon who works at a hospital in the Jabaliya refugee camp, which has been heavily bombarded, said that now only “life-saving” surgery”. “All hospitals now rely on diesel and generators, but eventually the fuel will run out.”
Fabrizio Carboni, ICRC regional director for the Near and Middle East, outlined the dire consequences of a prolonged power outage. Insufficient power can put newborns in incubators and put elderly patients at risk from oxygen. “Kidney dialysis is stopped and X-rays cannot be done,” he said.
“Without power, hospitals risk becoming morgues.”
Svlook
