The emergency department of al-Chifa hospital in northern Gaza, devastated by Israeli bombing, is “a bloodbath” and what was the largest hospital in the Palestinian territory now needs “resuscitation” , writes the WHO on Sunday.
A team from the World Health Organization (WHO) and other UN agencies was able to deliver medical equipment on Saturday to the hospital, where “tens of thousands of displaced people” have taken refuge in the enclosure of the hospital complex to take shelter, underlines a WHO press release published on Sunday, specifying that drinking water and food “are lacking. »
“The team [qui s’est rendue dans l’hôpital] described the emergency department as a ‘bloodbath,’ with hundreds of injured patients inside and new patients arriving every minute,” the organization says, adding that “trauma patients were sutured to the the ground and that the means to manage the pain are very limited or even non-existent.
The hospital is only functioning at a minimum and with a very reduced team and “critical patients are transferred to Ahli Arab hospital for surgical interventions”.
The operating theaters no longer function due to lack of oxygen and, in the words of the WHO team, the hospital “needs resuscitation itself.” » Only 30 patients can receive dialysis.
The entire health infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has been hit hard by bombings and ground operations carried out by the Israeli army since the unprecedented attack by Hamas on Israeli territory on October 7. This attack left 1,140 people dead, mostly civilians, and more than 240 hostages, taken to the Gaza Strip by the Islamic movement.
Since then, the Israeli army has relentlessly bombarded the densely populated Palestinian territory, killing, according to the Palestinian Hamas government, 18,800 people since the start of the war, 75% of them children.
Israel accuses Hamas of using certain hospitals — which have special protective status under the laws of war — to hide weapons or install command posts underground.
The WHO said it was ready to strengthen al-Chifa “in the coming weeks” so that it could once again fulfill its basic functions.
“Up to 20 operating rooms in the hospital, as well as post-operative care services, can be activated if they are regularly supplied with fuel, oxygen, medicines, food and water,” emphasizes the WHO, which emphasizes that personnel are also needed.
Currently, Ahli Arab is the only “partially functioning” hospital in the entire northern Gaza Strip, with three hospital structures operating only minimally: al-Chifa, al-Awda and al-Sahaba. Before the war there were 24.
The WHO also expressed concern about Kamal Adwan Hospital.
On Saturday, the Israeli army announced that it had discovered weapons and arrested around 80 Hamas members in the area of this hospital in the north of the Gaza Strip during which it carried out a “massacre” according to the Palestinian Islamist movement.
“Soldiers arrested around 80 terrorists”, “destroyed terrorist infrastructure and located numerous weapons”, according to the army, which specified that medical personnel had been “interrogated”.
According to the military, “personnel admitted that weapons were hidden in incubators intended to be used for premature babies.”
Hamas, for its part, denounced a “horrible massacre” in the hospital, the army having “destroyed with bulldozers the tents of the displaced” who had taken refuge there, causing “a number of deaths”.