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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/gazas-collapsing-health-system-is-one-of-the-goals-of-israels-genocide/?ml_recipient=120318804073907602&ml_link=120318733213238687&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2024-05-03&utm_campaign=Daily+Headlines+RSS+Automation">mondoweiss.net</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Gaza’s collapsing health system is one of the goals of Israel’s genocide</h1>
<span class="gmail-post-author"><span class="gmail-by">By</span> <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/author/qassam-muaddi/" title="Posts by Qassam Muaddi" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Qassam Muaddi</a> and <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/author/tareqhajjaj/" title="Posts by Tareq S. Hajjaj" class="gmail-author gmail-url gmail-fn" rel="author">Tareq S. Hajjaj</a></span>
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<a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/05/gazas-collapsing-health-system-is-one-of-the-goals-of-israels-genocide/" class="gmail-date-link">May 2, 2024</a>
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<img src="cid:ii_lvqvcya00" alt="220424_Dair_El-Balah_AH_1_0023-1536x1095.jpg" width="464" height="331"><br><p>Rotting wounds, starvation, babies born in tents without anesthesia,
the spread of infectious disease, and the severe lack of medicine are
all part of the new normal for over two million people living in Gaza. </p>
<p>Last week, the Gaza-based Palestinian health ministry said that about
600,000 people in the northern Gaza Strip no longer have access to any
kind of healthcare. It also warned that medicine fridges and the only
oxygen plant in Gaza are at risk of shutting down due to the systematic
lack of fuel. The World Health Organization has <a href="https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/04/1148316#:~:text=Gaza%3A%20'Systematic%20dismantling%20of%20healthcare%20must%20end'%20says%20WHO,-UN%20News&text=Footage%20of%20destruction%20of%20Al,not%20be%20used%20as%20battlefields.">said</a> that Israel is “systematically dismantling” the health system in Gaza. Save The Children has <a href="https://www.savethechildren.net/news/gaza-rate-attacks-healthcare-higher-any-other-conflict-globally-2018">reported</a>
that Israel’s attacks on the health sector in Gaza have been higher
than in any other conflict — at the rate of 73 attacks per day.</p>
<p>But one of the most major blows that Gaza’s health system suffered
was in early April, following a two-week Israeli siege of al-Shifa
Hospital, leaving the medical compound completely and permanently
non-operational. The aftermath of the siege revealed that a massacre had
occurred. <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/04/come-out-you-animals-how-the-massacre-at-al-shifa-hospital-happened/">Mondoweiss gathered testimonies from survivors</a>
of how it was carried out by Israeli soldiers, which included rounding
up people in the hospital, separating them into groups identified by
differently-colored bracelets, and executing one of the groups before
burying them in mass graves.</p>
<p>Al-Shifa was the largest Palestinian medical complex in all of
historic Palestine. Founded under the British Mandate in 1946, it grew
over the years until it became the Gaza Strip’s primary medical hub,
housing 25% of its medical staff. It was the beating heart of Gaza’s
health system.</p>
<p>“Al-Shifa was the center of all medical services in the Strip. It was
the ultimate destination for complex medical conditions,” Nebal
Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent Society (PRCS),
told Mondoweiss. “It was also the training center of a large number of
medical students and practicing junior doctors.”</p>
<p>“During previous wars, al-Shifa was a hub for receiving complicated
injuries and the overload from other hospitals, as it had the most
complete equipment and a wide range of specialized doctors in most
medical fields,” Farsakh added. “Yet, al-Shifa was repeatedly
overwhelmed during the Israeli assaults of 2008 and 2014, which were
much shorter and caused much less casualties than the current assault.” </p>
<p>“My 19-year-old cousin, Anas Abu Rass, lost his leg after bomb
shrapnel hit him while he was sleeping in his bedroom,” Huda Amer, a
resident of Gaza City who continues to live there with her family, told <em>Mondoweiss</em>.
“For this critical wound, in normal conditions, we would have taken him
to al-Shifa. Now he is being treated in a small primary health care
center where they don’t have the equipment, and they had to amputate his
leg.”</p>
<p>“Most patients who have scheduled surgeries on the public health
insurance list were treated at al-Shifa. Now, they are all waiting their
turn in the remaining overcrowded hospitals and getting whatever help
they can in small clinics, like my cousin,” she added.</p>
<p>The second largest hospital in the Strip after al-Shifa was the
Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis. Israeli forces besieged the hospital for
weeks at a time between February and April, targeting Palestinians
inside with sniper fire. In mid-February, Israeli forces raided the
hospital and forced medical staff and patients alike to leave its
premises, arresting hundreds.</p>
<p>The Israeli army withdrew from Khan Younis in early April. After the
withdrawal, Palestinians found hundreds of bodies buried in mass graves
in the hospital’s vicinity, a repeat of al-Shifa. Many of the bodies
unearthed from the scene had medical catheters still attached to their
bodies, indicating that they had been patients. Others were found with
their hands bound by zip-ties with Hebrew labels on them. <a href="https://mondoweiss.net/2024/04/i-felt-like-pulling-my-heart-out-of-the-earth-testimonies-from-the-mass-grave-at-nasser-hospital/">Mondoweiss gathered testimonies</a>
from people who visited the mass graves searching for missing relatives
who had disappeared months earlier. Some were able to identify them and
put the mystery of their disappearance to rest. Others were not quite
so lucky and were left wondering about the fate of their loved ones.</p>
<h2><strong>A dying health sector</strong></h2>
<p>Inside what remains of Gaza’s hospitals, things are worse than one
can imagine. Patients and the injured are strewn on the floor as doctors
move between them in an attempt to provide treatment to whoever they
can. Patients’ families carry plastic bags filled with intravenous
medications and raise them high so that they continue to flow. The
majority of stitching and suturing operations are performed without
anesthesia. Most drugs for chronic diseases are not available in
hospitals or private pharmacies. All kidney patients have suffered for
months due to the cessation of their dialysis treatments. Many have
died.</p>
<p>The stories coming out from Gaza City of doctors and nurses who had
to operate on their family members without anesthesia are haunting. In a
video posted on social media, Dr. Hani Bseiso recounts in pain how he
made the difficult decision to amputate his niece’s leg with a kitchen
knife.</p>
<p>“I had difficult choices: to let Ahed bleed to death or to use the
capabilities available to me and treat her,” Dr. Bseiso says. “I decided
to close my eyes and my heart, bite down on my pain, and do what could
not be done.” He performed the operation on their home’s dining table.
On hand was a kitchen knife, a dish sponge, water, and soap.</p>
<p>Other than al-Shifa, all other hospitals in northern Gaza have been
destroyed, including Beit Hanoun Hospital and the Indonesian Hospital.
All of them were stormed by the army, their equipment ransacked, their
beds burned.</p>
<p>Muhammad Zaqout, General Director of Hospitals in the Gaza Strip,
says that while 35 hospitals were operating inside the Gaza Strip before
the war (13 of which were government hospitals), only 4 hospitals now
remain open in the entire coastal enclave.</p>
<p>“The hospitals that are still operating are the al-Aqsa Martyrs
Hospital in Deir al-Balah, with a capacity of up to 140 beds; the
European Hospital in Khan Younis, with a capacity of up to 240 beds; and
al-Najjar Hospital in Rafah, with a capacity of up to 65 beds,” Zaqout
said. “There is one specialized hospital for maternity, which is the
Emirates Maternity Hospital. The rest of the hospitals in the Gaza Strip
all stopped working and were stormed, destroyed, or burned.” </p>
<p>“There is also no hospital left for children in the Gaza Strip,”
Zaqut adds. “All of which have gone out of service, such as al-Nasr
Hospital in Gaza City.” </p>
<p>“The few remaining hospitals in the Gaza Strip that are still
operational have only faced increased pressure,” Zaqout said. “The
European Hospital, now the largest hospital operating in the Strip, has
increased its capacity for patients from 240 beds to nearly 800 beds due
to the ongoing pressure on the health sector in the Gaza Strip.
Thousands of displaced people inside the hospital transformed many
departments into housing departments.”</p>
<p>The European Hospital has become a gathering hub for displaced
people’s tents. The corridors, patient rooms, courtyards, and entrances
are all crowded.</p>
<p>Organizations, institutions, and countries are trying to establish
field hospitals in different areas of the Gaza Strip, in addition to
hospitals and medical clinics such as the Jordanian field hospital in
the city of Rafah. Still, Zaqout points out that these field hospitals
cannot provide essential medical services that people rely on,
explaining that they do not have a source of generating oxygen.</p>
<p>Despite the vast number of injured people as a result of the repeated
bombing of all areas of the Gaza Strip, the health ministry in Gaza can
coordinate the discharge of 20-30 injured people daily for treatment
abroad in hospitals in Egypt, Qatar, Turkey, and other countries. But
the number is minimal compared to the number of wounded people who are
in urgent need of treatment outside the Gaza Strip.</p>
<p>“The situation is very catastrophic. Hospitals cannot accommodate the
wounded, and the numbers transported for treatment abroad are small and
not proportionate to the number of injuries,” Zaqout maintains. “The
health sector is terrible and is getting worse due to repeated threats
from the occupation to the remaining centers. If these hospitals stop
working, they will turn into mass graves, as with what happened in
Nasser and al-Shifa.” </p>
<p>“The Israeli army destroys the hospitals and prevents them from being
restarted,” he adds. “It prevents the re-entry of the medical equipment
it destroyed and prevents everything we need to restart hospitals. The
occupation is deliberately destroying the entire health sector inside
the Gaza Strip.”</p>
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