On brink of collapse, Gaza’s Indonesia Hospital holds the line to save lives

Special  On brink of collapse, Gaza’s Indonesia Hospital holds the line to save lives
Hospital authorities have over the past week warned that it was on the verge of collapse. (AFP/File)
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Updated 12 November 2023
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On brink of collapse, Gaza’s Indonesia Hospital holds the line to save lives

 On brink of collapse, Gaza’s Indonesia Hospital holds the line to save lives
  • Indonesia Hospital in North Gaza was built in 2015 from donations of the Indonesian people
  • Israeli forces targeted the hospital after accusing it of sheltering a Hamas “control center”

JAKARTA: An Indonesian-funded hospital in Gaza has turned dark after intense Israeli shelling, but its doctors remain on duty, like all medical workers in the besieged Palestinian enclave, despite power outages and incessant airstrikes.

As the number of casualties from the attacks constantly increases, the Indonesia Hospital in Beit Lahiya, which has a capacity of 230 beds, is treating and sheltering a few thousand people.

The hospital’s authorities and the Indonesian nongovernmental organization Medical Emergency Rescue Committee, or MER-C, which funded it in 2015, over the past week warned that it was on the verge of collapse.

The hospital’s 170 Palestinian doctors, nurses and paramedics have been on duty not-stop since the beginning of Israeli attacks and the complete siege of Gaza last month, which has left most health facilities with no fuel to run their operations, no medicine to treat the injured, and no food or water.




A vehicle on fire outside the Indonesian Hospital in Gaza. (MER-C)

Fikri Rofiul Haq, a 23-year-old MER-C volunteer at the hospital, told Arab News that they depended on lunch packages they would receive from Al-Shifa Hospital, and they had “no food for breakfast or dinner.”

But Al-Shifa has been encircled by Israeli forces since Thursday, reporting scores of deaths and critical injuries as missiles hit its emergency department, the labor and delivery unit, and the yard where internally displaced families were sleeping.

Both Al-Shifa and the Indonesia Hospital went into a power blackout on Friday evening.

“The Indonesia Hospital has gone dark … But doctors are still dedicated and still providing medical services,” MER-C Chairman Dr. Sarbini Murad told Arab News on Saturday.

“Their dedication is not only extraordinary but wholehearted in serving the humanitarian field. I am devastated and numb because I cannot help them as they are fighting to save the victims.”

The Indonesia Hospital opened in late 2015 and was officially inaugurated by Indonesia’s then-Vice President Jusuf Kalla in 2016.

The four-story general hospital stands on a 16,200 square-meter plot of land near the Jabalia refugee camp in North Gaza, donated by the local government in 2009.

The hospital’s construction and equipment were financed from donations of the Indonesian people, with contributions from both the wealthy and the poorest citizens, as well as organizations including the Indonesian Red Cross Society.

Dozens of Indonesian engineers and builders volunteered between 2011 and 2015 to design and build the facility and to prepare its operations.




The Indonesia Hospital opened in late 2015 and was officially inaugurated by Indonesia’s then-Vice President Jusuf Kalla in 2016. (MER-C/File)

In 2013 and 2014, fundraising for the hospital’s equipment was supported by the readers of the Indonesian daily Republika, various Muslim organizations, and celebrities such as members of Slank — a group widely seen as one of the greatest rock bands in the history of Indonesian popular music — with events held in the major cities calling for small donations of 50,000 rupiahs ($3).

Since the hospital’s opening, MER-C continued to send volunteers to help. Three of them, including Haq who has been in touch with Arab News, were in Gaza when the Israeli attacks began last month. The Indonesian government has offered them help to evacuate, but all opted to stay to provide emergency support.

The facility is one of the last remaining hospitals in Gaza as Israel continues its daily bombardment of the densely populated enclave in retaliation for the Oct. 7 attack by the Gaza-based militant group Hamas.

The Israeli military claimed last week that Hamas was using the Indonesia Hospital “to hide an underground command and control center.”

The statement was immediately denounced by MER-C as an attempt to “craft a public lie,” while the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that the hospital “is a facility that Indonesians built entirely for a humanitarian purpose and to serve the medical needs of Palestinian people in Gaza.”

Sarbini, MER-C’s chairman, warned at the time that the Israeli military’s accusations may be “a precondition to attack the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza.”

Days later, on Thursday, missiles hit the hospital’s vicinity, killing at least eight people, wounding many more, and damaging some of its facilities.

MER-C estimates that about 1,000 people are currently being treated at the hospital for injuries, as Israeli airstrikes on civilians have since Oct. 7 killed more than 11,000 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, and wounded tens of thousands more.




The hospital in 2016. (AFP/File)

Gaza’s Ministry of Health estimates that among the dead are 195 doctors, paramedics and nurses, who for the past two weeks have been increasingly targeted — alongside their relatives — despite medical workers being protected by the Geneva Convention.

For Indonesians, they are heroes.

“No one should risk their lives like that in saving others,” Berlian Idriansyah, a cardiologist in Jakarta, told Arab News.

“As a doctor, I’m astonished and heartbroken at the same time that Indonesian Hospital’s doctors and staff, and all health workers in Gaza, are determined to stay helping people until their last breaths.”

Paramita Mentari Kesuma, environmentalist and sustainability consultant, was deeply moved by their dedication.

“The doctors, the nurses, the medical staff in Gaza are our heroes,” she told Arab News.




An Indonesian volunteer poses with Palestinian children during a competition to draw the building of the Indonesia Hospital in Gaza in 2015. (MER-C)

“We just cannot imagine the casualties and mental pressure that they experience there day by day … still saving lives, despite their own personal losses, and all that knowing that they might be the next target.”

Indonesia has long been a staunch supporter of Palestinians, who were among the first to recognize the Indonesian independence from Dutch colonial rule in 1945.

Many Indonesians see Palestinian statehood as mandated by their own constitution, which calls for the abolition of colonialism.

“The hospital represents this notion … The hospital represents Indonesia’s continuous support for the people of Palestine,” Kesuma said.




Many Indonesians see Palestinian statehood as mandated by their own constitution, which calls for the abolition of colonialism. (MER-C)

In the past few weeks that support has become especially important, as despite the cries from UN agencies, the Red Cross and Red Crescent, and human rights lawyers warning that Israel’s campaign of massacres in Gaza was beyond genocide, the world leaders have not stopped the daily and deadly strikes on civilians.

“When there is so little that we can do from our hometowns in Indonesia, we hope the hospital can also represent not only our voices but also all the voices from around the world that have been asking for a ceasefire,” Kesuma said.

“It serves as an extension of our prayers, presence.”

To Wanda Hamidah, Indonesian actress and politician, the hospital is also a representation of Indonesians, whose government, unlike the world’s most powerful countries, continued to be in solidarity with the Palestinians “as the methodical extermination campaign by Israel unfolded in their land.”

“As a mother and human, I am devasted by these massacres. For me, this is not war. This is ethnic cleansing, Holocaust,” she told Arab News. “What is painful is that these massacres are supported by the US and the European Union, to which we would look up to on human rights policies. But not anymore.”

The Indonesia Hospital has for her become a promise that Indonesians “will always be present and help the Palestinian state until Palestinians become independent again and back in control of their motherland.”

The sentiment of Indonesians “will never change,” she said, for it is a “manifestation of our love for Palestine.”


At least 23 killed in Israeli strike on Lebanon's Almat, ministry says

At least 23 killed in Israeli strike on Lebanon's Almat, ministry says
Updated 51 min 4 sec ago
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At least 23 killed in Israeli strike on Lebanon's Almat, ministry says

At least 23 killed in Israeli strike on Lebanon's Almat, ministry says
  • Strike on Sunday occurred in the village of Aalmat, north of Beirut, and far from the areas in the south and east of the country where the Hezbollah militant group has a major presence

BEIRUT: At least 20 people, including three children, were killed and six others injured in an Israeli strike on Almat in Lebanon’s Mount Lebanon province, the country’s health ministry said on Sunday.
Three people were also killed and two others wounded in an Israeli strike on Mashghara in the western part of Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley late on Saturday, while one person was killed and four others injured in a strike on Sahmar, also in western Bekaa, that occurred the same night, the health ministry added.
There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military, which says it is targeting Hezbollah militants in Lebanon.


UN atomic watchdog chief to arrive in Iran Wednesday: state media

UN atomic watchdog chief to arrive in Iran Wednesday: state media
Updated 10 November 2024
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UN atomic watchdog chief to arrive in Iran Wednesday: state media

UN atomic watchdog chief to arrive in Iran Wednesday: state media

TEHRAN: The chief of the United Nations’ nuclear watchdog, Rafael Grossi, will visit Iran in days for talks with senior officials, Iranian state media reported on Sunday.
“The director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency will arrive in Iran on Wednesday ... at the official invitation of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the official IRNA news agency reported.
Grossi will meet Iranian officials on Thursday, the agency added.
The IAEA confirmed Grossi’s visit to Iran this week, without specifying the date in a post on X.
It said the visit would include talks with Iran’s foreign minister Abbas Araghchi.
The agency also quoted Grossi as calling for “substantive progress” on a March 2023 deal that had outlined basic cooperation, including on safeguards and monitoring.
In a September interview with AFP, Grossi said Iran was showing “willingness” to re-engage on the nuclear issue, but it was not willing to walk back on a decision it took to ban some of the IAEA’s inspectors.
Iran withdrew the accreditation of several inspectors last year, a move the UN agency described at the time as “extreme and unjustified.”
Tehran had said then its decision was a consequence of “political abuses” by the United States, France, Germany and Britain.
Grossi last visited Iran in May, when he called for “concrete” measures to help bolster cooperation on Iran’s nuclear program at a news conference in Isfahan province, home to the Natanz uranium enrichment plant.
His visit this month will come after Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.
During his first term in office, Trump unilaterally withdrew Washington from a pivotal nuclear deal that aimed at curbing Iran’s nuclear program in return for sanctions relief.
Efforts mediated by the European Union have failed to bring Washington back on board and to get Tehran to again comply with the terms of the accord.
Iran has rolled back its commitments to caps on nuclear activities under the deal, and tensions have repeatedly flared between Tehran and the IAEA over its compliance.
Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian, who took office in July, has favored reviving that agreement and called for ending his country’s isolation.
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters he was “not looking to do damage to Iran” but noted that Iran “can’t have a nuclear weapon.”
Iran has always denied having ambitions to develop a nuclear weapon, insisting its activities are entirely peaceful.
On Saturday, Iranian Vice President Mohammad Javad Zarif urged Trump to reassess his “maximum pressure” policy which has seen the US impose punishing sanctions on Tehran.
He blamed that policy for leading to the surge in enrichment levels “to reach 60 percent from 3.5 percent.”
Enrichment levels of around 90 percent are required for military use.
rkh/mz/jsa


Syrians, Iraqis archive Daesh jail crimes in virtual museum

Syrians, Iraqis archive Daesh jail crimes in virtual museum
Updated 10 November 2024
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Syrians, Iraqis archive Daesh jail crimes in virtual museum

Syrians, Iraqis archive Daesh jail crimes in virtual museum
  • They managed to capture 3D footage of around 50 former Daesh jails and 30 mass graves before they were transformed
  • In total they have documented 100 prison sites, interviewed more than 500 survivors and digitised over 70,000 Daesh documents.

Paris: After jihadists jailed him in 2014, Iraqi religious scholar Muhammad Al-Attar said he would sometimes pull his prison blanket over his head to cry without other detainees noticing.
Daesh group extremists arrested Attar, then 37, at his perfume shop in Mosul in June 2014 after overrunning the Iraqi city, hoping to convince the respected community leader to join them.
But the former preacher refused to pledge allegiance, and they threw him into prison where he was tortured.
In his group cell of at least 148 detainees at Mosul’s Ahdath prison, at times “there was nothing left but to weep,” Attar said.
But “I couldn’t bear the thought of the younger men seeing me cry. They would have broken down.”
So he hid under his blanket.
Daesh, also called Daesh, seized control of large parts of Syria and neighboring Iraq and declared a so-called caliphate there in 2014, implementing its brutal interpretation of religion on inhabitants.
The militants banned smoking, mandated beards for men and head-to-toe coverings for women, publicly executed homosexuals and cut off the hands of thieves.
They threw perceived informants or “apostates” into prison or makeshift jails, many of whom never returned.
Attar’s story is one of more than 500 testimonies that dozens of journalists, filmmakers and human rights activists in Syria and Iraq have collected since 2017 as part of an online archive called the Daesh Prisons Museum.
The website, which includes virtual visits of former jihadist detention centers and numerous tales about life inside them, became public this month.
The project is holding its first physical exhibition, including virtual reality tours, at the Paris headquarters of UNESCO, the UN’s culture and education agency, until November 14.
Syrian journalist Amer Matar, 38, is director of the web-based museum.
“IS abducted my brother in 2013, and we started to look for him,” he told AFP.
After US-backed forces started to expel jihadists from parts of Syria and Iraq in 2017, “I and my team got the chance to go inside certain former IS prisons,” he said.
They found thousands of prison documents from the group whose caliphate was eventually defeated in 2019, but also detainee scratchings on the walls.
Etched inside the football stadium in the Syrian city of Raqqa, for example, the team found prisoner names and Qur’anic verses, as well as lyrics from a 1996 television drama about peace eventually prevailing.
Inside one solitary cell, they discovered exercise instructions to keep fit in English.
Matar says he was detained twice at the start of the Syrian civil war, in a government jail for covering protests against President Bashar Assad.
“I too would write my name on the wall because I didn’t know if I’d get out or if they’d kill me,” he said.
“People usually write their names, cries for help or stories about someone who was killed,” he added.
“They’re messages into the future so that people can find someone.”
Matar and his team decided to film the former prison sites and archive all the material within them before they disappeared.
“Many were homes, clinics, government buildings, schools or shops” that people were returning to and starting to repair, said Matar, who is now based in Germany.
They managed to capture 3D footage of around 50 former Daesh jails and 30 mass graves before they were transformed, he said.
In total they have documented 100 prison sites, interviewed more than 500 survivors and digitised over 70,000 Daesh documents.
Younes Qays, a 30-year-old journalist from Mosul, was in charge of data collection in Iraq.
“To hear and see the crimes inflicted on my people was really tough,” he said, recounting being particularly shocked by the tale of a woman from the Yazidi minority who was raped 11 times in IS captivity.
Robin Yassin-Kassab, the website’s English editor, said the project aimed to “gather information and cross-reference it” so it could be used in court.
“We want legal teams around the world to know that we exist so that they can come and ask us for evidence,” he said.
Matar has not found his brother.
But within the coming year, he hopes to launch a sister website called Jawab, “Answer” in Arabic, to help others find out what happened to their loved ones.


Dozens killed and wounded in Israeli strike on northern Gaza's Jabalia, medics say

Dozens killed and wounded in Israeli strike on northern Gaza's Jabalia, medics say
Updated 10 November 2024
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Dozens killed and wounded in Israeli strike on northern Gaza's Jabalia, medics say

Dozens killed and wounded in Israeli strike on northern Gaza's Jabalia, medics say
  • The first strike on a house in Jabalia in northern Gaza killed ‘at least 25’ people

GAZA STRIP, Palestinian Territories: Dozens of people were killed and wounded in an Israeli strike on a house in Jabalia in the northern Gaza Strip at dawn on Sunday, Palestinian medics said.
Footage circulating on social media, which Reuters could not immediately verify, showed about a dozen bodies wrapped in blankets and laid to the ground at a hospital. Residents said the building that was hit had housed at least 30 people.
The Palestinian official news agency WAFA and Hamas media put the number of people killed at 32. There was no immediate confirmation of the tally by the territory’s health ministry.
The Civil Emergency Service says its operations have been halted by an ongoing Israeli raid into two towns and a refugee camp in northern Gaza that began on Oct 5. It also could not provide a figure for those killed in the attack.
Israel says it sent forces into Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Beit Hanoun in the north of the enclave to fight Hamas militants waging attacks from there and to prevent them from regrouping. It says its troops have killed hundreds of militants in those areas since the new offensive began.
In Gaza City, an Israeli airstrike on a house in Sabra neighborhood killed Wael Al-Khour, an official at the Welfare Ministry, and seven other members of his family including his wife and children on Sunday, medics and relatives said.
The Israeli military said it was looking into the reports on the strike in Jabalia and in the Sabra neighborhood.


US, Britain launch raids on Yemeni capital Sanaa, elsewhere, Al-Masirah TV says

US, Britain launch raids on Yemeni capital Sanaa, elsewhere, Al-Masirah TV says
Updated 10 November 2024
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US, Britain launch raids on Yemeni capital Sanaa, elsewhere, Al-Masirah TV says

US, Britain launch raids on Yemeni capital Sanaa, elsewhere, Al-Masirah TV says
  • Houthi media and residents said about nine raids had targeted the Sanaa, its suburbs and Amran governorate
  • Iran-aligned Houthi militants have launched attacks on international shipping near Yemen since November last year

Washington: US warplanes staged multiple strikes Saturday night on Iran-backed Houthi advanced weapons storage facilities in Yemen, the Pentagon said.
The facilities contained various weapons used to target military and civilian vessels navigating international waters throughout the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden, according to information provided to AFP by the Pentagon.
The Houthi-run Al Masirah television network reported three American and British raids that targeted the capital Sanaa’s southern Al Sabeen district.
“Eyewitnesses said they heard intense flying, along with explosions in different parts of the capital Sanaa,” Al Masirah said.
The United States and Britain have repeatedly struck Houthi targets in Yemen since January in response to attacks by the rebels on shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.
The rebels say the strikes, which have disrupted maritime traffic in a globally important waterway, target vessels linked to Israel and are intended to signal solidarity with Palestinians during the Gaza war.
The attacks have seriously disrupted the Red Sea route which carries 12 percent of global trade.
In more than 100 Houthi attacks over nearly a year, four sailors have been killed and two ships have sunk, while one vessel and its crew remain detained since being hijacked last November.
Saturday’s strikes come three days after the Houthi’s leader Abdul Malik Al-Houthi criticized US president-elect Donald Trump for supporting Israel.
Houthi said that normalization deals between Arab countries and Israel brokered by Trump had failed to bring an end the Middle East conflict and that he would fail again in his second term.