After a week of conflict, Israeli emergency services, and more generally healthcare workers, remain particularly mobilized. They are also among the first witnesses to the intensity and atrocities of the attacks.
The conflict between Israel and Gaza enters its second week. The death toll reaches thousands on both sides: 1,300 civilians killed on the Israeli side and 2,215 people killed according to the Gaza Ministry of Health, and thousands injured. In hospitals, from the beginning, doctors have faced the influx of wounded and iThey are just as traumatized as the rest of the population.
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“I haven’t slept much, I’ve been up since 4am”admitted Professor Gilbert Sebbagh, head of the surgical department at Beersheba hospital, following the Hamas attack. It is the largest hospital in southern Israel, and at the height of the crisis there were “ten operating rooms working in parallel.”
Experience of treating seriously injured people
The doctor explains that “Gunshot wounds are difficult to treat” but “in Israel, all surgeons know traumatology very well” because everyone has already treated the injured by rockets and bullets. This allows them today to “treat the sick as best as possible”.
An hour’s drive from Beersheva, at the entrance to the Barzilai emergency room, Ashkelon hospital, the stretchers are positioned and the ambulances ready to leave. The hospital suffered numerous salvos of rockets launched from the nearby Gaza Strip. A hole is still visible in a bridge between the buildings and the damage in a pediatric center is considerable.
Severe fatigue
“Our two hospitals combined welcomed nearly 1,500 patients on Saturday alone. Seriously injured. Some died, others are in critical condition”tell Omri Lev Or, surgeon returned from England to lend a hand to the Ashkelon teams. It was particularly marked by the arrival of the wounded from the kibbutz of Be’eri, Kfar Aza where Hamas fighters committed atrocities.
Leaning against a wall, his eyes reveal his intense fatigue and the unprecedented character in the horror of this new war between Israelis and Palestinians. “I have the feeling that all of Israel is suffering from post-traumatic stress. This has happened in the past, but this time the shock looks like it will be difficult to overcome. It is beyond us and it is crushing us. , it has nothing to do.” A feeling shared by the doctors who, a few kilometers from him, treat the injured population of Gaza.