A public-health disaster compounds Gaza’s humanitarian crisis

Special A public-health disaster compounds Gaza’s humanitarian crisis
Palestinians wounded waiting to be treated at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City on December 16, 2023. (AFP)
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Updated 12 March 2024
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A public-health disaster compounds Gaza’s humanitarian crisis

A public-health disaster compounds Gaza’s humanitarian crisis
  • Hellish scenes playing out at enclave’s few still functioning hospitals and clinics
  • Many doctors and nurses have either fled, been wounded or killed in the fighting

DUBAI: Children lie in rows on hospital floors and on pavements outside crowded clinics as they await the attention of sleep-deprived medics. Many are caked in dust, congealed with blood and tears, their untreated wounds growing septic the longer they wait.

Among them, men and women search frantically for missing loved ones or plead with doctors for medical attention, while mothers cradle dying infants. With supplies of gauze now scarce, many are bandaged in a patchwork of whatever fabric is available.

Deprived of antiseptics and even clean water, doctors are forced to perform operations and amputations without sterilized equipment, leading to infections for which there are no antibiotics. These often take place without anesthetic or pain relief.

Such hellish scenes are playing out at the few remaining hospitals and clinics across the Gaza Strip, which has endured months of bombardment and effective siege since Israel launched its retaliation for the Hamas-led attack of Oct. 7.




Palestinian children suffering from malnutrition receive treatment at a healthcare center in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip on March 5, 2024. (AFP)

“There are still patients and casualties who are scheduled for operations that cannot be performed because there are no supplies, no anesthetic drugs, no generators in these hospitals,” Hisham Mhanna, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross based in Rafah, told Arab News.

“It’s a mess. It’s a catastrophe.”

This, at a time when doctors and nurses have themselves fled, been wounded or even killed amid the bombardment. According to the World Health Organization, just 30 percent of Gaza’s medics are still working — many of them stretched to breaking point.

“They deal with the resulting casualties that are coming into the emergency rooms after airstrikes,” said Mhanna. “This is in addition to the hundreds of thousands of patients and vulnerable groups, including cancer patients, people with disabilities, pregnant women and people with chronic diseases.”




A Palestinian woman comforts her children as they wait at the hospital to be checked in the city of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip on October 12, 2023. (AFP)

According to Hamas-run Gaza’s Ministry of Health, some 30,900 Palestinians have been killed, 70,500 injured, and 7,000 have gone missing since the violence began. Faced with such carnage, the local health system is buckling.

On Feb. 18, the WHO said Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, the largest city in southern Gaza, where fighting is ongoing, was no longer functional.

“The European Gaza Hospital is the only hospital that’s functional and can provide advanced healthcare services such as surgeries, intensive care and X-rays,” Jessica Moussan, a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross based in Dubai, told Arab News.

“There are a few other hospitals partially functioning that have been provided a few supplies.”




A picture shows the damage in Nasser Hospital and the surrounding area in Khan Yunis in the southern Gaza Strip on February 26, 2024. (AFP)

At the end of January, the ICRC said: “Gaza is at risk of complete medical shutdown without urgent action to preserve services.”

In a statement, William Schomburg, head of the ICRC office in Gaza, said: “Every hospital in the Gaza Strip is overcrowded and short on medical supplies, fuel, food and water.

“Many are housing thousands of displaced families. And now two more facilities risk being lost due to the fighting. The cumulative impact on the health system is devastating and urgent action must be taken.”

INNUMBERS

30,900 Palestinians killed in Gaza since Oct. 7, according to local health officials.

1.3% Proportion of Gaza’s prewar population of 2.3m killed in the conflict.

70,500 People registered as injured, although the true figure is likely far higher.

Just nine of Gaza’s 36 health facilities are still functioning, many only partially, and all at many times their intended capacity. The crowding is made worse by displaced families camped out on hospital grounds, believing they are safe there from the Israeli bombardment.

“The few remaining hospitals that are still functioning struggle on a daily basis with large numbers of casualties in addition to the pressure resulting from the thousands of families who are internally displaced at the hospitals,” said Mhanna.




Palestinians run for cover next to covered bodies after an Israeli airstrike near the Kamal Adwan hospital in Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip on November 22, 2023. (AFP)

The displacement of some 85 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million inhabitants to densely packed refugee camps has left the population — especially young children — vulnerable to waterborne diseases, placing further pressure on health services.

There are also the cases generated by the spread of disease during the war, added Mhanna.

“At certain points sewage was flooding into the hospitals. There is also no personal space, and people cannot afford to buy food,” he said.

“They would rather buy food than hygiene items and without hygiene items you create the perfect storm for a public health crisis filled with waterborne diseases like cholera, hepatitis, chicken pox and influenza, because it is also cold here.”

Then there are those suffering with chronic conditions such as heart disease, diabetes and cancer, who have been unable to access routine treatments and therapies since the onset of the crisis, not to mention those in need of physiotherapy and mental health support.




Children injured in an Israeli strike are rushed to the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on October 15, 2023. (AFP)

Among the most vulnerable are pregnant women and newborns, who lack access to midwives, surgeons and incubators, as well as pain relief and antiseptics, making complications even more likely.

Critics say the vast destruction is evidence that Israel’s attacks are disproportionate and fail to limit civilian casualties. “Hospitals, intended to be safe havens … have frequently turned into death traps,” the Israeli watchdog Physicians for Human Rights said in a report published in February.

The Israeli government says its military does not target civilians or hospitals and blames Hamas for conducting military operations and launching rockets from crowded residential areas.

Israeli officials have also disputed claims of a mounting hunger crisis in Gaza. One official, recently cited by Bloomberg, said “there is not a shortage of food or water in the Gaza Strip at the moment,” and “it’s just not true that starvation is looming.”

Aid agencies say the limit on the amount of humanitarian relief permitted to enter Gaza by the Israeli military has caused widespread malnutrition, which doctors lack the resources to treat.

Despite repeated warnings by aid agencies about an impending famine, several Gazans have reportedly starved to death.




Aid agencies say the limit on the amount of humanitarian relief permitted to enter Gaza by the Israeli military has caused widespread malnutrition. (AFP)

In northern Gaza, where 300,000 people are thought to remain, around 16 percent of children under the age of two were acutely malnourished as of January, according to the UN. The organization has cited an “unprecedented” rate of decline in the nutritional status of Gazans.

Aid groups operating in Gaza say it has become almost impossible to deliver supplies due to inspections and procedural red tape put in place by the Israeli military, the ongoing fighting, and the complete breakdown of public order.

Even when aid is delivered, crowds of desperate Palestinians quickly overwhelm convoys before relief can be distributed and rationed to the neediest. Such crowds have resulted in crushes, causing further death and injury.

One such incident on Feb. 29, in which more than 100 Palestinians who rushed an aid convoy were killed — many apparently shot dead by Israeli forces — prompted the US to airdrop 38,000 meals into the enclave on March 2.




A man mourns at Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City, over the bodies of Palestinians killed in an early morning incident when residents rushed toward aid trucks, on February 29, 2024. (AFP)

In a statement on Monday, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the US was working to increase the delivery of humanitarian aid to civilians in Gaza “through as many channels as possible,” including more airdrops because “the situation is simply intolerable.”

“People are desperate for food and water,” said Miller. “Parents are facing impossible choices about how to feed their children. Many don’t know where the next meal will come from, or if it will come at all.”

Although the airdrops offer desperately needed relief, Mhanna said many of the parachuted crates landed in dangerous places where they were often mobbed by desperate crowds, causing accidents, injuries, and brawls.

“These airdrops are our last resort for aid supplies,” he said. “We have seen them land on the rooftops, in the streets. And when they do, people rush to get to the first one, at times fighting each other for the aid.

“This is what makes the ceasefire more urgently needed than ever. We need these safe spaces to access the aid.”




The UN said around 16 percent of children under the age of two in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished as of January. (AFP)

While a ceasefire would ease the burden of further injuries and the release of additional aid would allow medics to save more lives, the damage to Gaza’s health system will likely take years to repair.

Indeed, if the conflict were to end now, approximately 8,000 more people could still die over the next six months as a result of the public health crisis, according to a report by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Johns Hopkins Center for Humanitarian Health.

“Even if there is a ceasefire, the healthcare system and its workers will not be able to recover quickly,” said Mhanna. “Healthcare workers have been on their knees for months. I don’t see how they can respond to such great needs.”

 


Large Gaza food convoy violently looted, UNRWA says

Large Gaza food convoy violently looted, UNRWA says
Updated 58 min 8 sec ago
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Large Gaza food convoy violently looted, UNRWA says

Large Gaza food convoy violently looted, UNRWA says

GENEVA: A convoy of 109 trucks was violently looted on Nov. 16 after crossing into Gaza, resulting in the loss of 98 trucks, an UNRWA aid official told Reuters on Monday.
The convoy carrying food provided by UN agencies UNRWA and the World Food Programme was instructed by Israel to depart at short notice via an unfamiliar route from Kerem Shalom crossing, Louise Wateridge, UNRWA Senior Emergency Officer told Reuters.
“This incident highlights the severity of access challenges of bringing aid into southern and central Gaza,” she said.


Majority of South Sudanese will be food insecure next year: UN

Majority of South Sudanese will be food insecure next year: UN
Updated 18 November 2024
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Majority of South Sudanese will be food insecure next year: UN

Majority of South Sudanese will be food insecure next year: UN
  • Almost 7.7 million people will be classed as acutely food insecure, according to the IPC, an increase from 7.1 million people the previous lean season
  • More than 85 percent of returnees fleeing the war in Sudan will be acutely food insecure from the next lean season in April

Juba: Almost 60 percent of South Sudan’s population will be acutely food insecure next year, with more than two million children at risk of malnutrition, data from a United Nations-backed review warned on Monday.
The world’s youngest country is among the globe’s poorest and is grappling with its worst flooding in decades as well as a massive influx of refugees fleeing the war in Sudan to the north.
The latest Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) review estimated that 57 percent of the population would be suffering from acute food insecurity from April.
The United Nations defines acute food insecurity as when a “person’s inability to consume adequate food puts their lives or livelihoods in immediate danger.”
Almost 7.7 million people will be classed as acutely food insecure, according to the IPC, an increase from 7.1 million people the previous lean season.
“Year after year we see hunger reaching some of the highest levels we’ve seen in South Sudan,” said Mary-Ellen McGroarty of the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) in South Sudan.
“When we look at the areas with the highest levels of food insecurity, it’s clear that a cocktail of despair — conflict and the climate crisis — are the main drivers,” she said.
More than 85 percent of returnees fleeing the war in Sudan will be acutely food insecure from the next lean season in April.
The data also found that 2.1 million children are at risk of malnutrition, compounded by a lack of safe drinking water and sanitation.
“Malnutrition is the end result of a series of crises,” said Hamida Lasseko, UNICEF’s representative in South Sudan, adding the agency was “deeply concerned” that the numbers would increase if aid was not stepped up.
In October, the World Bank warned widespread flooding was “worsening an already critical humanitarian situation.”
The UN’s humanitarian agency, OCHA, said earlier this month that 1.4 million people had been impacted by the flooding, which had displaced almost 380,000.
Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, the world’s youngest nation has remained plagued by chronic instability, violence and economic stagnation as well as climate disasters such as drought and floods.
The country also faces another period of political paralysis after the presidency delayed elections by two years to December 2026, exasperating international partners.
South Sudan boasts plentiful oil resources but the vital source of revenue was decimated in February when an export pipeline was damaged in neighboring war-torn Sudan.


Israeli strikes kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza, some in attacks on tents, say medics

Israeli strikes kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza, some in attacks on tents, say medics
Updated 18 November 2024
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Israeli strikes kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza, some in attacks on tents, say medics

Israeli strikes kill 18 Palestinians in Gaza, some in attacks on tents, say medics
  • Israeli military targets include tents housing displaced families, say medics
  • Victims were ‘ripped apart into fragments’, says survivor

CAIRO: Israeli military strikes across the Gaza Strip killed 18 Palestinians on Monday, including six people who were killed in attacks on tents housing displaced families, medics said.
Four people, two of them children, were killed in an Israeli airstrike on a tent encampment in the coastal area of Al-Mawasi, designated as a humanitarian zone, while two were killed in temporary shelters in the southern city of Rafah and another in drone fire, health officials said.
In Beit Lahiya town in northern Gaza, medics said an Israeli missile struck a house, killing at least two people and wounding several others. On Sunday, medics and residents said dozens of people were killed or wounded in an Israeli airstrike on a multi-floor residential building in the town.
The Israeli military, which has been fighting Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza since October 2023, said it conducted strikes on “terrorist targets,” in Beit Lahiya.
An Israeli airstrike on a house in Gaza City killed five people and wounded 10 others, medics said. Later on Monday, an Israeli air strike killed four people in the Nuseirat camp in the central Gaza Strip, they added.
There has been no Israeli comment on Monday’s incidents.
In Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis, relatives of Palestinians killed in an Israeli airstrike on tents housing displaced families sat beside bodies wrapped in blankets and white shrouds to pay farewell before walking them to graves.
“My brother wasn’t the only one; many others have been martyred in this brutal way — children torn to pieces, civilians shredded. They weren’t carrying weapons or even know ‘the resistance’, yet they were ripped apart into fragments,” said Mohammed Aboul Hassan, who lost his brother in the attack.
“We remain steadfast, patient, and resilient, and by the will of God, we will never falter. We will stay steadfast and patient,” he told Reuters.
The Israeli army sent tanks and soldiers into Beit Lahiya and the nearby towns of Beit Hanoun and Jabalia, the largest of the Gaza Strip’s eight historic refugee camps, early last month in what it said was a campaign to fight Hamas militants waging attacks and prevent them from regrouping.
Hussam Abu Safiya, the director of the Kamal Adwan Hospital in Beit Lahiya, said the hospital was under siege by Israeli forces and the World Health Organization had been unable to deliver supplies of food, medicine and surgical equipment.
Cases of malnutrition among children were increasing, he said, and the hospital was operating at a minimal level.
“We receive daily distress calls, but we are unable to assist them due to the lack of ambulances, and the situation is catastrophic,” he said. “Yesterday, I received a distress call from women and children trapped under the rubble, and due to my inability to help them, they are now among the martyrs (dead).”
Israel said it had killed hundreds of militants in the three northern areas, which residents said was cut off from Gaza City, making it difficult and dangerous for them to flee. The armed wings of Hamas and militant group Islamic Jihad said they have killed many Israeli soldiers in anti-tank rocket and mortar fire attacks during the same period.
The Hamas-run Gaza health ministry says more than 43,800 people have been confirmed killed since the war erupted on Oct. 7, 2023. Hamas militants killed around 1,200 people in attacks on communities in southern Israel that day, and hold dozens of some 250 hostages they took back to Gaza, according to Israeli tallies.


Hamas political office has not moved to Turkiye from Qatar, Turkish source says

Hamas political office has not moved to Turkiye from Qatar, Turkish source says
Updated 29 min 20 sec ago
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Hamas political office has not moved to Turkiye from Qatar, Turkish source says

Hamas political office has not moved to Turkiye from Qatar, Turkish source says

ANKARA: A Turkish diplomatic source dismissed on Monday reports that Hamas had moved its political office to Turkiye from Qatar, adding that members of the Palestinian militant group only visited the country from time to time.
Qatar said last week it had told Hamas and Israel that it will suspend efforts to mediate a Gaza ceasefire and hostage release deal until both show willingness and seriousness. Doha also said media reports that it had told Hamas to leave the Gulf Arab country were not accurate.
NATO member Turkiye has fiercely criticized Israel over its offensives in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon and does not consider Hamas a terrorist organization. Some Hamas political officials regularly visit Turkiye.
“Hamas Political Bureau members visit Turkiye from time to time. Claims that indicate the Hamas Political Bureau has moved to Turkiye do not reflect the truth,” the diplomatic source said.
Later on Monday, Hamas dismissed the reports as “rumors the (Israeli) occupation is trying to publish from time to time.”


Schools closed in Beirut after deadly Israeli strike

Schools closed in Beirut after deadly Israeli strike
Updated 18 November 2024
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Schools closed in Beirut after deadly Israeli strike

Schools closed in Beirut after deadly Israeli strike
  • Sunday’s strikes hit densely populated districts of central Beirut
  • Six people were killed in the strikes

BEIRUT: Schools in Beirut were closed on Monday after Israeli strikes on the Lebanese capital killed six people including Hezbollah’s spokesman, the latest in a string of top militant targets slain in the war.
Israel escalated its bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds in late September, vowing to secure its northern border with Lebanon to allow Israelis displaced by cross-border fire to return home.
Sunday’s strikes hit densely populated districts of central Beirut that had so far been spared the violence engulfing other areas of Lebanon.
Six people were killed in the strikes, according to Lebanese health ministry figures, including Hezbollah media relations chief Mohammed Afif, the group and Israel’s military said.
The strikes prompted the education ministry to shut schools and higher education institutions in the Beirut area for two days.
Children and young people around Lebanon have been heavily impacted by the war, which has seen schools around the country turned into shelters for the displaced.
Israel widened the focus of its war from Gaza to Lebanon in late September, nearly a year into the conflict in Gaza that was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack.
In support of its Palestinian ally, Hezbollah launched low-intensity strikes on Israel after the attack, forcing about 60,000 Israelis to flee their homes.
With Hamas weakened but not crushed, Israel escalated its battle against Hezbollah, vowing to fight until victory.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,480 people have been killed since October last year, with most casualties recorded since September.
Israel says 48 soldiers have been killed fighting Hezbollah.
Israeli strikes have killed senior Hezbollah officials including its leader Hassan Nasrallah in late September.
The group’s spokesman Afif was part of Nasrallah’s inner circle, and one of the group’s few officials to engage with the press.
Another strike hit a busy shopping district of Beirut, sparking a huge blaze that engulfed part of a building and several shops nearby.
Lebanon’s National News Agency said the fire had largely been extinguished by Monday morning, noting it had caused diesel fuel tanks to explode.
It also reported new strikes early Monday on locations around south Lebanon, long a stronghold of Hezbollah.
Israel’s military told AFP it had hit more than 200 targets in Lebanon over 36 hours, including in Beirut’s southern suburbs, Hezbollah’s main bastion.
Lebanon’s military, which is not a party to the conflict, said Israel “directly targeted” an army center in south Lebanon on Sunday, killing two soldiers.
Israel’s military said about 20 projectiles crossed from Lebanon into Israel, and some were intercepted.
Lebanon last week said it was reviewing a US truce proposal in the Israel-Hezbollah war, as Hamas said it was ready for a ceasefire in Gaza.

Ongoing war on Gaza
So far, however, there has been no sign of the wars abating.
The Israeli military kept up its campaign in Gaza over the weekend, where civil defense rescuers said strikes on Sunday killed dozens of people.
Vowing to stop Hamas from regrouping in northern Gaza near the border, Israel on October 6 began an air and ground operation in Jabalia and then expanded it to Beit Lahia.
On Sunday, Gaza’s civil defense agency said 34 people were killed, including children, and dozens were missing after an Israeli air strike hit a five-story residential building in Beit Lahia.
“The chances of rescuing more wounded are decreasing because of the continuous shooting and artillery shelling,” civil defense spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP.
Weighed down with backpacks, many like Omar Abdel Aal were fleeing, often on foot, through dusty streets.
“They bombarded the houses and completely destroyed Beit Lahia,” he said.
Israel’s military said there were “ongoing terrorist activities in the area of Beit Lahia” and several strikes were directed at militant targets there.
“We emphasize that there have been continuous efforts to evacuate the civilian population from the active war zone in the area,” the military said.
The United Nations and others have condemned humanitarian conditions in northern Gaza, with the UN agency supporting Palestinian refugees last week calling the situation “catastrophic.”
The health ministry in Hamas-run Gaza on Sunday said the overall death toll in more than 13 months of war had reached 43,846, a majority civilians, figures that the United Nations consider reliable.
Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel resulted in the deaths of 1,206 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.