The Israeli army said on Friday evening that it had increased its strikes in Gaza in a “very significant manner”. MSF’s head of operations in Palestine pleads for “a ceasefire”.
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“What is happening now only amplifies the humanitarian crisis and the horrible situation in which the civilian population trapped in Gaza finds itself for three weeks”alerted Sarah Château, responsible for Médecins sans frontières (MSF) for operations in Palestine, on Friday October 27 on franceinfo, while the Israeli army announced that it had intensified its strikes “in a very significant way” on the Gaza Strip, on the 21st day of its war against the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
“The situation is already catastrophic. The Gazans are facing an avalanche of bombings unprecedented for three weeks”, underlines Sarah Château. The head of MSF assures that she has not “didn’t lose touch” for the moment with the teams on site because it is possible to “contact them by satellite phone”. But she specifies that the NGO has “300 Palestinian and Gazan colleagues”with whom she did not “not necessarily the level of information and contacts”. Sara Château says she lost “the line of communication with them”. “We are very worried”. She testifies that “intensification of bombing” Friday October 27 “is of a very worrying nature” for his colleagues “who try to find refuge wherever they can”.
While the spokesperson for the Israeli army accused Hamas on Friday October 27 of using Gaza’s main hospital, Al Shifa Hospital, as a human shield to hide its tunnels and operational centers, Sara Château was outraged. . “There is no question of a human shield. It’s just a hospital. And in a hospital, we take wounded people. And the bombings have been taking place intensively for three weeks now, with an enormous number of wounded.”
1,000 beds for 5,000 patients
Al Shifa Hospital has “around 1,000 beds”explains the head of MSF, with “4,000 to 5,000 patients treated permanently”with “operating theaters that can no longer accommodate the volume of patients” And “medicines that are no longer there because there aren’t enough trucks coming in”. This hospital is just “a medical structure with injured people and a civilian population who need to go to hospitals and who need to be taken care of”. “It’s really important to preserve medical capacity, to preserve the possibility of this population being able to seek care given the scale of the bombings they are facing”.
Friday October 27, Emmanuel Macron called from Brussels for a “humanitarian truce” between Israel and Hamas to protect civilians in Gaza, believing that the Israeli response must “better target” THE “terrorists”. “We need to believe”reacts Sarah Château. “It’s the only hope we have”. MSF “appealed to President Emmanuel Macron, to all the negotiation networks and diplomatic channels that we could have to request this humanitarian truce”. But “ideally”the MSF head of operations in Palestine pleads for “a ceasefire”. “Humanitarian truces and secure locations are essential so that we can provide minimum care and help protect the civilian population in certain places and help them”. “We want to believe in all the efforts that will be made in this direction”adds Sarah Château.