source: TRIBUNE

published: 28 March 2024

Image Credit: Jack Moreh at www.FreerangeStock

Medics tortured and executed, operations without anaesthetic, patients dying from starvation. Gaza's medical workers speak to Tribune about Israel's apocalyptic war on healthcare.

It’s a death zone,’ said Athanasios Gargavanis, a trauma surgeon for the World Health Organisation, upon reaching the now defunct emergency department of Nasser medical complex. There were dead bodies in corridors, no tap water at all and no electricity beyond a small backup generator. At least eight patients had died due to a lack of oxygen.

This was the grim outcome of Israel’s brutal siege on the barely functioning hospital in the Southern Gaza city of Khan Yunis. Two weeks earlier, 14-year-old Ru’a Atef Qadeeh was shot dead by Israeli snipers in front of the Hospital gate while desperately trying to fetch water from a nearby location. A further twenty-one Palestinians in the vicinity of the besieged hospital were killed by Israeli snipers in the days that followed.

Four Western-based doctors who have worked in Gaza hospitals in recent months have confirmed that the healthcare system in the war-ravaged enclave has essentially collapsed.

During a raid on the hospital, medical staff were interrogated, and more than seventy healthcare workers were reportedly detained by Israeli forces. ‘I have lived three days of hell, along with my patients’, said one surgeon. ‘What happened to doctors, patients and internally displaced people here is unbelievable, even in your worst nightmares.’

Doctor Ahmed Moghrabi, who was forced to leave Nasser Hospital in the middle of the night with his family, described families being chased by Israeli military dogs as they evacuated.

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