What doctors volunteering in Gaza’s stricken hospitals witnessed under Israeli siege

Special What doctors volunteering in Gaza’s stricken hospitals witnessed under Israeli siege
At a news conference at the UN HQ in New York City last week, four doctors, who worked with teams in Gaza to support its healthcare system, described witnessing ‘appalling atrocities.’ (Supplied)
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Updated 26 March 2024
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What doctors volunteering in Gaza’s stricken hospitals witnessed under Israeli siege

What doctors volunteering in Gaza’s stricken hospitals witnessed under Israeli siege
  • During visits to UN and Washington, medics described “appalling atrocities” committed against the enclave
  • Doctors urged the international community to press for an immediate ceasefire and to allow aid into Gaza

NEW YORK CITY: Four doctors from the US, UK and France, who have been working with teams in Gaza to support its healthcare system, have described witnessing “appalling atrocities” under Israel’s military offensive.

The four specialists told an event at the UN headquarters this week that doctors in the enclave are faced with “horrific decisions” almost every day as a result of the war.

Nick Maynard, a cancer surgeon from the UK city of Oxford, has for the best part of the past 15 years been traveling to the Gaza Strip to teach, carry out surgeries, and help develop local healthcare capacity.

Because of his long association with Gaza, Maynard thought he was prepared for what awaited him when he again set foot in the Palestinian territory last December as part of the first UK emergency medical team to arrive since the outbreak of war in October.




According to the World Health Organization, there have been 164 attacks on healthcare infrastructure in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7. (AFP)

However, what he encountered during his two weeks at Al-Aqsa Hospital were “the most appalling atrocities,” he said. “I saw things that I never would have expected to have seen in any healthcare setting.”

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. Maynard rejects this claim.

Any medic who has worked in Gaza in recent months can dispel “with absolute certainty” the notion that Israel is conducting targeted bombing of Hamas militants and is protecting civilians,” he said.

“There is mass, indiscriminate bombing, killing many, many thousands of civilians, and a very clear targeting of healthcare facilities and workers, and deliberately destroying the infrastructure of all the hospitals to make it almost impossible to provide anything resembling normal healthcare to the population of Gaza.”

In fact, Maynard said Israel’s actions resemble the dictionary definition of genocide — designed to drive the Palestinian people out of Gaza.

“I spent some time looking at the definition of genocide in a variety of dictionaries,” he said. “And what is going on in Gaza fulfills every single definition of genocide that I have read.

“To those of us who’ve been on the ground there, and indeed, more importantly, all the Gazans I’ve spoken to, say the endgame of the Israeli government is to force them out completely from Gaza, to eradicate them from that land.”

Maynard was speaking at the UN headquarters in New York, where he was among a delegation of doctors meeting with UN representatives, who later met with Biden administration officials and members of Congress in Washington on Friday.

Their goal is to “instill a sense of urgency,” make sure US decision-makers and the international community “know what we know,” and hammer home that “the only way to prevent that ongoing humanitarian catastrophe is an immediate and permanent ceasefire.”

According to the World Health Organization, there have been 164 attacks on healthcare infrastructure in the Gaza Strip since Oct. 7, when the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel triggered Israel’s retaliation against the group’s Gaza stronghold.




More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began. (AFP)

The UN agency says more than 400 medical workers have been killed since the conflict began. Before the war there were 6,000 beds at 39 hospitals in Gaza. Now roughly 295 hospital beds remain.

Israel has accused Hamas of building a vast tunnel network under Gaza’s hospitals, which it claims contain command centers, weapons caches, and places for holding Israeli hostages taken during the Oct. 7 attack.

“I’ve paid many visits to Al-Shifa Hospital and a lot of the other hospitals as well and I’ve never, in any service, any time during my visits, seen any evidence of military activity of any Hamas militants in any of the hospitals,” said Maynard.

“The Israelis have provided no credible evidence whatsoever to support those claims.”

Also among the doctors’ delegation was Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American doctor who is co-founder and president of MedGlobal, an NGO that provides emergency response and health programs around the world.

Sahloul, who was in Gaza in January, said the enclave is reaching a “tipping point.”

“Gaza at this stage is unlivable because of the persistent destruction of the infrastructures that are required for life,” he said.

The continued squeeze on deliveries of humanitarian assistance and commercial goods is pushing the population to the brink of famine, particularly in northern Gaza, with malnutrition and food insecurity reaching “catastrophic levels,” said Sahloul.

INNUMBERS

• 164 Attacks on healthcare infrastructure in Gaza since Oct. 7.

• 400 Medical workers killed since eruption of conflict.

• 295 Hospital beds currently available in Gaza.

Source: WHO

Chronic conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes, and various cancers that require regular medication, dialysis, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy, are going untreated as a result of shortages and the destruction of healthcare infrastructure, he added.

More than 30,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza since the conflict began, including 13,000 children, according to the local health ministry.

Sahloul believes this is “an underestimate of the real numbers,” however, as roughly 5,000 people are still thought to be buried under the rubble of collapsed buildings.

And these numbers “will continue to accelerate even if the war stops right now,” he said.

“The collapse of the healthcare system will lead to pregnant women dying from bleeding and diarrhea patients dying from dehydration.”




Zaher Sahloul, who was in Gaza in January, said the enclave is reaching a “tipping point.” (Supplied)

And if Israel follows through on its threat to mount an attack on Rafah, Sahloul fears such an incursion will result in a “bloodbath,” and the death of an estimated 250,000 people.

During his address to UN officials, Sahloul showed a photograph of Hiam Abu Khodr, a Palestinian child who lost her father and brother when a bomb destroyed her home. Her mother was also injured in the blast. Hiam, meanwhile, suffered third-degree burns to 40 percent of her body.

“If you want to define post-traumatic stress disorder, this is what it looks like in the face of a child who is 7 years old,” said Sahloul.

Hiam waited weeks for an evacuation to Egypt for treatment. However, she died of her injuries two days after leaving Gaza. According to Sahloul, just 10 percent of the 8,000 patients in need of evacuation for treatment abroad have been able to leave.

Sahloul described “apocalyptic” scenes in the few hospitals that remain partially functional in Gaza, where the wounded brought into overcrowded wards are mostly treated on the floor. He described the case of 12-year-old Mohmad Abu Shahla, who arrived unable to breathe.




Any medic who has worked in Gaza in recent months can dispel “with absolute certainty” the notion that Israel is conducting targeted bombing of Hamas militants and is protecting civilians,” said Nick Maynard. (AFP)

Mohmad had surgery to remove shrapnel from his abdomen before he was whisked to the intensive care unit where Sahloul tended to him. However, the boy “never woke up.”

“We were not able to communicate with his family. We sent him to the morgue. And I made a copy of his death certificate, to keep it as a proof.”

On Thursday, displaced civilians camped out in the grounds of Al-Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza were ordered to leave immediately as Israeli forces continued their raid on the hospital complex.

Scores of people have reportedly been killed and 70 health workers arrested during the raid, with thousands more civilians sent south to Rafah, where some 1.4 million people were already hemmed before recent attacks on Khan Younes.

While many “incredibly heroic” healthcare workers decided to stay, Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian-American emergency medicine physician who was with Sahloul in Gaza in January and who also spoke at the UN event, chose to evacuate before the raid.

On his way into Gaza, Ahmad said he saw “hundreds of trucks” lined up on the Egyptian side of the border waiting to bring aid into the enclave.




The Israeli government says its military does not target civilians or hospitals. (AFP)

“We know that these trucks have baby formula. We know that they have many needed items,” including diapers, inhalers, and sedatives for pain relief, he said.

“This is something that we could be using for our patients who are in pain as we’re trying to reset their fractures, clean their burns. It’s an incredibly painful process and this is something that can help. We’re not able to get this into the Gaza Strip because the trucks are stalled.

“Or if someone is having difficulty breathing as you may suspect may happen as bombs are dropping, and air fills with smoke, we’re not able to get a rescue inhaler to be able to treat their asthma.

“Or diapers for families. We’ve heard of people having to use plastic bags because they cannot find diapers and if they do find them, the price is incredibly high because of inflation and the lack of supplies.

“I hope that this can bring home the urgency that exists on the ground. We need our hospitals to be able to stand. We need the bombs to stop dropping, hopefully through a ceasefire. And we hope that we can get the necessary items in to help alleviate the incredible amount of suffering that’s taking place in the Gaza Strip.”

Also among the doctors’ delegation was Amber Alayyan, a pediatrician from Texas, who has been working with Medecins Sans Frontieres for 13 years.

As a result of the scarcity of medicines, Alayyan said, doctors are faced with “horrific decisions,” sometimes having to intubate patients without anesthetics.

Displaced people with nowhere to go are sheltering in hospitals and sleeping on beds intended for patients, she said.

“What does that mean for injured people? They arrive, they get a quick and dirty surgery in an emergency room or in an operating theater, and they have nowhere to be hospitalized afterward.

“Or when they are, they’re lost in the hospital and our teams spend all day searching for the patients they just operated on 12 hours before.

“The longer the war goes on, the longer these wounds have to rot. I mean really rot. No hospital in the world — high-income, low-income — could cope with the amount of injuries that we’re seeing and the needs that we’re seeing on the ground.”

The collapse of Gaza’s health system and shortages of food have left pregnant and lactating women and their newborns especially vulnerable, said Alayyan.

These women “were already facing high iron deficiency, anemia, before the war, which put them at risk for hemorrhage during birth,” she said.




“All the Gazans I’ve spoken to, say the endgame of the Israeli government is to force them out completely from Gaza, to eradicate them from that land,” Nick Maynard. (AFP)

“With the war, it puts them in a state of undernourishment and potentially malnutrition, which means that they can’t breastfeed their children properly. The milk doesn’t necessarily come in and it’s definitely not enough.

“The other population is children under 2 years, which is the breastfeeding age. Those children need to be breastfed. If they can’t, then they need a formula. To have formula you need clean water. None of these things are possible.”

She said women are “squeezing fruit dates into handkerchiefs and drip feeding their children with some sort of sugary substance to nourish them.”

“How many people are going to need prosthetics? What is the socioeconomic status of Gaza going to look like in five years? In three years? In three months? How can this population, that is so incredibly resilient, rebuild itself? And the longer the war goes on, the harder this becomes.”




“No hospital in the world — high-income, low-income — could cope with the amount of injuries that we’re seeing,” said Amber Alayyan.

Ahmad said he has often heard it said in Gaza that “there is a war after the war.”

“And it’s a day of reckoning for the people, to think about everything that they’ve lost, all of the struggles that they’ve been through.”

He added: “Oftentimes, what we can see is there can be a paralysis by analysis. And there could be a lot of deliberations that take place.

“We just want to impress upon the people who are at the table that this is very urgent and we need things to change within the next few hours or days, not weeks.”


Dozens of arrests follow Turkish unseating of mayors

Dozens of arrests follow Turkish unseating of mayors
Updated 11 November 2024
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Dozens of arrests follow Turkish unseating of mayors

Dozens of arrests follow Turkish unseating of mayors
  • Ankara and its Western allies have branded the PKK a “terrorist” organization. The group has waged a bloody guerrilla war since 1984 that has left more than 40,000 dead.

ISTANBUL: More than 30 people have been charged in Turkiye after protests against the removal of three mayors in the Kurdish-majority southeast, who were then replaced by government-appointed trustees, the interior ministry said Sunday.
Those detained, after the authorities sacked the mayors on “terrorism” charges, include a journalist from news website 10Haber.
His lawyer said the reporter was arrested late Saturday following a series of articles on the removal of a mayor in a district of Istanbul.
Authorities have alleged the mayor is linked to the banned Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK).
More than 250 people have also been detained for participating in protest rallies in mainly-Kurdish southeastern Turkiye against the mayors’ removal.
The ministry said 33 of those detained had been charged, while 37 have been placed under judicial surveillance, while three others face house arrest.
Monday’s replacement of the mayors sparked widespread anger and brought a rebuke from Europe’s top rights body, the Council of Europe, which said the move undermined local democracy.”
The trio all are from the main pro-Kurdish party DEM. They were elected in March when opposition candidates won in many areas, including Istanbul.
Authorities banned rallies in several Kurdish majority provinces after the move.
Images filmed mid-week in Batman showed police officers targeted by firecrackers and dispersing demonstrators with armored vehicles equipped with water cannons.
Ankara and its Western allies have branded the PKK a “terrorist” organization. The group has waged a bloody guerrilla war since 1984 that has left more than 40,000 dead.
 

 


Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike

Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike
Updated 11 November 2024
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Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike

Iran calls to expel Israel from UN after Syria strike
  • Iran's foreign ministry also called for “an arms embargo” against Israel

TEHRAN: Iran’s foreign ministry called Sunday for an arms embargo on Israel and the expulsion of its arch-foe from the United Nations, following a deadly strike in Syria.
Foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said Tehran “strongly condemned the aggressive attack carried out today by the Zionist regime against a residential building” in the Damascus area.
The strike on an apartment belonging to the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which is backed by Iran, killed nine people including a Hezbollah commander, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said.
Baghaei called for measures against Israel, including “an arms embargo” and its “expulsion from the United Nations.”
Regional tensions have soared since the outbreak of the Gaza war in October 2023, triggered by the Palestinian Hamas militant group’s unprecedented attack on Israel.
The conflict has drawn in Tehran-aligned militants in the region, and included rare direct attacks between Iran and Israel.
Since Syria’s civil war broke out in 2011, Israel has carried out hundreds of strikes in Syria, mainly targeting army positions and fighters including from Hezbollah.
Israeli authorities rarely comment on the strikes, but have repeatedly said they will not allow arch-enemy Iran to expand its presence in Syria.


Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq

Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
Updated 10 November 2024
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Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq

Five killed in Turkish drone strikes on PKK members in northern Iraq
  • Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory

BAGHDAD: Turkish drone strikes killed five members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service and security sources said on Sunday.
The first Turkish strike targeted a vehicle in a mountain area near Iraq’s northern province Dohuk late on Saturday, killing three, including one person identified by the Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism service statement as a “senior PKK official,” the statement added.
Another drone strike on Sunday targeted a vehicle, killing two fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a militia affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), two security sources and a local official in the district of Sinjar told Reuters.
Turkiye regularly carries out airstrikes on PKK militants in northern Iraq and has dozens of outposts in the Iraqi territory.
The PKK launched an insurgency against Ankara in 1984 with the initial aim of creating an independent Kurdish state. It subsequently moderated its goals to seeking greater Kurdish rights and limited autonomy in southeast Turkiye.

 


Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN

Sudanese who fled the war in their country cool off on the banks of the Nile river in the Egyptian city of Aswan. (File/AFP)
Sudanese who fled the war in their country cool off on the banks of the Nile river in the Egyptian city of Aswan. (File/AFP)
Updated 10 November 2024
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Egypt hosts 1.2 million Sudanese, with ‘hundreds’ arriving daily: UN

Sudanese who fled the war in their country cool off on the banks of the Nile river in the Egyptian city of Aswan. (File/AFP)
  • Egypt currently hosts 546,746 Sudanese refugees who are officially registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR

CAIRO: Hundreds of people fleeing war-torn Sudan arrive in neighboring Egypt every day, a UN official said Sunday, adding to more than 1.2 million who have found refuge there, according to official figures.
The war between rival Sudanese generals since April 2023 has killed tens of thousands of people and displaced more than 11 million, with 3.1 million of them seeking shelter beyond the country’s borders, according to the UN.
Egypt currently hosts 546,746 Sudanese refugees who are officially registered with the United Nations’ refugee agency UNHCR, as well as others who are awaiting registration, said Christine Bishay, associate external relations officer at UNHCR Egypt.
A UNHCR report issued on Friday said that “recent data from the government of Egypt indicates that more than 1.2 million Sudanese have sought international protection in Egypt.”
This has made the North African country the largest host of Sudanese refugees despite imposing stricter entry requirements during the war in Sudan, which shares a long border with Egypt.
Sudanese nationals “now make up two-thirds of the country’s total registered refugee population” of 827,644 people representing 95 nationalities, including Syria, South Sudan and Eritrea, she said.
“Initially, at the very beginning of the conflict, thousands of Sudanese arrived in Egypt on a daily basis, before stabilising to a few hundreds per day,” Bishay added.
Cairo had initially waived visa requirements for Sudanese women, children and men over 50 at the start of the war.
But a month after the conflict erupted, the Egyptian government introduced visa entry requirements for all Sudanese, leaving many to resort to irregular crossings.
In September this year, Egypt further tightened entry requirements, obliging people entering from Sudan to obtain “prior security clearance” alongside a consular visa, according to Egypt’s interior ministry.
Raga Ahmed Abdel Rahman, a 27-year-old Sudanese woman who crossed into Egypt illegally in August, told AFP she had paid about 500,000 Sudanese pounds ($830) to travel in a pick-up truck with 16 others.
The desert journey, which took a gruelling day and a half, was “exhausting and terrifying,” Abdel Rahman said.
“We were constantly afraid of being stopped by RSF forces,” she added, referring to the Sudanese paramilitary Rapid Support Forces who have been battling the regular army.
Hundreds of thousands of others who fled Sudan have sought refuge primarily in neighboring countries, including Chad, South Sudan and Libya.
In the report published on Friday, UNHCR Egypt warned that the humanitarian crisis caused by Sudan’s war has placed “immense pressure on Egypt’s resources and infrastructure.”
Hanan Hamdan, UNHCR representative to Egypt’s government and the Arab League, said that “the burden on Egypt is unsustainable and requires immediate and substantial international assistance to ensure the protection and well-being of those affected by the conflict.”
UNHCR also noted that so far, just over half of the funding needed for an aid scheme for Sudanese refugees has been secured.
The Sudan Humanitarian Response Plan 2024 “has received $1.52 billion in funding, which is 56.3 percent of the required $2.7 billion,” the UN agency said.
“Despite this significant contribution, the funding gap remains substantial.”


Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province

Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province
Updated 10 November 2024
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Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province

Five Iranian security forces killed in attack in Sistan-Baluchistan province
  • Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers

TEHRAN: At least five members of Iran’s security forces were killed Sunday in a “terror attack” in the restive southeast, where authorities have been conducting operations against rebels, local media reported.
The Fars news agency reported that in a “terror attack in Saravan county, in the south of the Sistan-Baluchistan province, five members of the security forces were killed.”
Sistan-Baluchistan borders both Afghanistan and Pakistan, and is one of Iran’s most impoverished provinces. It is one of the few mainly Sunni Muslim provinces in Shiite-dominated Iran.
For years it has faced unrest involving drug-smuggling gangs, rebels from the Baluchi minority and extremists.
Fars said that after the attack in Saravan, “units stationed in the region were quickly deployed to pursue the criminals.”
Iranian forces launched a major operation in the area after an attack on October 26 killed 10 police officers.
That attack was later claimed by the Pakistan-based Sunni jihadist group Jaish Al-Adl (Arabic for Army of Justice).
Local media reported that those behind the October attack have been killed in the current security operation.
Some 15 militants have been reported killed in Sistan-Baluchistan province since the October attack, including three on Sunday, state television said.
It also said more than 30 suspects have been arrested.
Formed in 2012 by Baluch separatists, Jaish Al-Adl is designated a terrorist organization by both Iran and the United States.