KUALA LUMPUR – The bombardment of Gaza continues as hospitals have been targeted over the past 24 hours, including snipers attacking patients inside the Al-Shifa Hospital.
Doctors Without Borders surgeon Dr Mohammed Obeid has shared an eerie voice note from inside Al-Shifa, which is Gaza’s largest medical facility, saying a sniper had attacked four patients inside the hospital.
“One of the patients has a gunshot wound directly in his neck, and he is quadriplegic, and the other one (was shot) in the abdomen. Some of the people went outside the hospital; they wanted to go to the south. They bombed them… they bombed their family.
“We can see the smoke around the hospital. They (Israeli military) hit everything around the hospital. And they hit the hospital many times.”
As fuel, water, and electricity ran out yesterday, the hospital lost two newborns when the incubators failed, while 40 others remain at risk.
Mohammed also shared that an adult patient died in the ICU because the ventilator shut down when the power went out.
“The problem is (we need) to be sure that we can evacuate the neonatal patients because we have about 37 to 40 premature babies. We have about 17 other patients in the ICU, and we have about 600 postoperative patients who need medical care. So the situation is very bad. We need help. No one hears us.
“We want someone to give us the guarantee that they can evacuate the patients.”
Meanwhile, a nurse sheltering in the hospital basement with his family, texted: “We are being killed here, please do something.”
“Four or five families are sheltering now in the basement, the shelling is so close, my kids are crying and screaming in fear.”
Doctors Without Borders head of mission in Palestine, Ann Taylor, has reiterated calls for a ceasefire so the Israeli government can stop its assault on Gaza’s health system.
“Our staff and patients are inside Al-Shifa Hospital, where the heavy bombing has not stopped since yesterday.”
There are currently no other facilities on the Gaza Strip that are able to admit and treat as many patients with complex, life-threatening injuries. Despite regular attacks and shortages, the staff has managed to keep the hospital operational.
However, ambulances can no longer move to collect the injured, and non-stop bombardment prevents patients and staff from evacuating.
At Al-Quds Hospital, Doctors Without Borders has lost contact with a surgeon who is working and sheltering there with his family. Other health facilities, including Al Rantisi Hospital, which MSF has also supported in the past, were reportedly surrounded by Israeli tanks.
However, the Israeli military denied endangering the hospital and offered to help evacuate babies trapped in Al-Shifa.
“The staff of the Shifa hospital has requested that tomorrow we help the babies in the paediatric department get to a safer hospital. We will provide the assistance needed,” chief military spokesman Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari was quoted as saying by Reuters.
“There are clashes between IDF (Israel Defence Forces) troops and Hamas terrorist operatives around the hospital. There is no shooting at the hospital, and there is no siege,” said Colonel Moshe Tetro, head of coordination and liaison at Cogat, the Israeli defence ministry body handling civil affairs in Gaza.
While Israel claimed that Hamas had placed command centres under and around hospitals in northern Gaza, Hamas has denied it. – November 12, 2023