in Gaza, the difficulties and destitution of a doctor facing a situation “which is getting worse every day”

For several days, the fighting between the Israeli army and Hamas in the Palestinian enclave has crystallized around hospital complexes, particularly those in the cities of Gaza and Khan Younes. It must be said that the intensity of the clashes has not diminished despite the vote, on Monday March 25, of a UN Security Council resolution calling for an “immediate ceasefire”.

Today, there is almost no health system in Gaza. In the north of the enclave, franceinfo was able to contact doctor Mahmoud al Shurafa by telephone.

Before the war, this small room was a chemistry laboratory in a school in Gaza City. But for lack of hospitals, for lack of buildings still standing, it has become a makeshift medical center, one of the only ones that still treats people remaining in the north of the Gaza Strip. “Every day the situation gets worsesays Doctor Mahmoud al Shurafa. It’s really very difficult as a doctor to tell patients who arrive seriously injured that we no longer have the means to treat them.”

“There is a lack of disinfection, sewing, all that because we lack medical equipment.”

Mahmoud al Shurafa, doctor

franceinfo

He specifies: with nearby shootings, bombings, transfers of patients to real hospitals are almost impossible. “Some died before our eyes and sometimes it was because a simple medical tool was missing to save them. It leaves a lump in our throat permanently. I remember, the worst was this old man arrived with shards of explosions in his neck. His condition required urgent surgery in a hospital. We knew we couldn’t help him in this place. We took a car, but it was already too late. He bled to death and died in our arms.” With his teams, Dr Mahmoud al Shurafa says he is doing “what he can” before adding that he never would have imagined working in such conditions.