Sixteen hospitals are no longer operational at all out of the 35 in the Gaza Strip, according to the Hamas-controlled Ministry of Health. A situation which raises fears of a collapse of the healthcare system.
Since the start of Israeli bombings on the Gaza Strip, in retaliation for the terrorist attack carried out by Hamas in Israel on October 7, Gazan doctors and international NGOs have been warning about the state of the health system. Degraded hospitals, injured patients who continue to arrive: the situation seems out of control. The Hamas-run health ministry says a third of the enclave’s hospitals are at a standstill. The cause in particular is the lack of fuel to power the generators.
An urgent lack of fuel
This is the case in the north of the Gaza Strip, at the Indonesian hospital for example, where the main generator stopped working Thursday evening. The hospital therefore uses a backup one but certain services have had to stop. Ventilators in intensive care units are turned off, doctors are using oxygen cylinders instead. The ventilation of the air conditioning was stopped, as well as that in the operating rooms. As for the refrigerators in the hospital morgues, which allow the bodies of the deceased to be preserved before their burial, they no longer work. In a press release, the establishment specifies that without the imminent arrival of fuel, the hospital will not last more than a few days.
A catastrophic situation for the many injured who continue to arrive since the bombings on the nearby Jabalya refugee camp. This is also the case for the Turkish-Palestinian Friendship Hospital in Gaza, the only one that treats cancer patients. The lives of 70 patients, already very fragile, are in danger. “Don’t let them die because of an out-of-service hospital,” implores the hospital director.
Doctors slalom between patients
The other reason is that some hospitals have been damaged by bombings or nearby strikes. This is the case of Al-Quds hospital, in the Tel al-Hawa district of Gaza City. There were first several calls to evacuate, then bombings nearby endangering medical staff, patients and all the people who had taken refuge there. Since then there has been debris, dust and even more injuries. “Targeting hospitals is a war crime”recalls Ghassan Abu Sittah, a London doctor in Gaza.
All other establishments welcome well beyond their capacities. Videos show patients on the ground. A young medical student films himself slaloming between people in the corridors. He specifies that he no longer knows whether he is in a hospital or in a refugee camp. Hospitals lack everything: medicines, products… Some doctors even report having to carry out operations without anesthesia.
There is also the whole question of pregnant women. 160 give birth every day in Gaza according to the United Nations Population Fund, which also estimates that there are 50,000 currently in the territory. Since October 7, according to Hamas figures, 135 doctors and caregivers have been killed and 25 ambulances destroyed in Israeli strikes.