TESTIMONIALS. In Gaza, doctors want to take advantage of the truce to finally properly treat the thousands of wounded

“We hope that we will not receive any more new wounded, that we will finally have time to take care of the patients we already have,” confides a doctor from Gaza, as this Saturday marks the second day of the ceasefire. fire.

On the second day of truce between Israel and Hamas, and while new hostages must be released on Saturday, November 25, the civilian population of Gaza is taking advantage of the respite, after six weeks of intense bombing. This is particularly the case in hospitals, where doctors, on the front line since the start of the conflict, hope to be able to relieve a little their services overloaded by the number and severity of injuries.

Because since the start of the Israeli bombings on the Palestinian enclave, the Gazan health system has held up thanks to one thing: the unfailing dedication of professionals. Since the start of the war, Salah el-Shami has worked non-stop to limit the damage in the European hospital, in the far south of the enclave. There are sometimes two injured people per bed in this establishment, he says. “At night, I stay in the hospital to sleep. I work 24 hours straight and go home to see my family.”

“Since the war started, we haven’t been paid. And you know now, in this situation, we don’t sleep well at night.”

Salah el-Shami, doctor at the European Hospital in southern Gaza

at franceinfo

A little further north, in the Nasser hospital, Nedal Abdel says the medical staff are exhausted. He is Palestinian and works with the NGO Médecins du Monde. The needs, he says, are at all levels. “We need a lot of space, a lot of reinforcements in doctors who could come from outside, confides the doctor. We hope that the war will end and that we will no longer receive any new wounded, so that we will finally have time to take care of the patients we already have who need surgery.”

“They attacked all the hospitals”

Nedal Abdel only returns home every three days. He says he has to walk seven kilometers on foot due to lack of fuel for his car. Like him, doctors have the feeling of giving a lot, without real protection. Indeed, several hospitals were bombed in the Palestinian enclave. “In Gaza City, there was something exceptional because they attacked all the hospitalscastigates Nedal. Doctors have been killed in the north, so even here we don’t think the hospitals are protected.”

Hospitals in the south of the Gaza Strip, already overloaded, are now receiving injured people from the north of the enclave who, due to lack of care for several days, are in very poor condition. In Gaza hospitals, the truce will above all be an opportunity to redouble efforts.