Doctors at Gauze they say that patients arriving at hospitals are showing symptoms diseases caused by overcrowding and inadequate sanitation after flight of at least 1.4 million people from their homes to temporary shelters under the heaviest bombardment ever experienced in this area.
Aid services have repeatedly warned about it potential health crisis in the tiny densely populated Palestinian enclave which is under blockade by Israel, which has cut off electricity, clean water and fuel, with only small UN convoys carrying food and medicine entering.
“The overcrowding of civilians and the fact that most schools used as shelters house many people, they create the ground for a spread of diseasessaid Naheed Abu Taaema, a public health physician at Nasser Hospital in Ham Younes.
The Palestinian authorities they say nearly 5,800 people have been killed by Israeli airstrikes and artillery strikes that followed the October 7 attack by Hamas militants who invaded Israel killing over 1,400 people and taking at least 200 hostages.
Israel has told residents of the northern Gaza Strip to move south, but its strikes have flattened areas across the enclave. With hospitals seeing the fuel that powers their generators run out, doctors have warned that critical infrastructure like incubators for newborns, are in danger of stopping.
The Health Ministry of Hamas stated that 40 medical centers have suspended their operations while bombings and displacements increase the pressure on the system.
The World Health Organization has warned that a third of hospitals in Gaza are not functioning. “We are on our knees asking for a continued, increased, protected humanitarian operation,” said the head of the regional emergency management Rick Brennan.
The private Indonesian Hospital, the largest in northern Gaza, said today that it had pulled the switch on all but the most vital departments such as the Intensive Care Unit.
The only other hospital still serving patients in northern Gaza, Beit Hanoun Hospital, has ceased operations due to heavy shelling of the city, the Palestinian Health Ministry said.
“If the hospital doesn’t secure fuel, it will be the death penalty for patients in northern Gaza“said the director of the hospital, Atef al-Kahlut.
“The children are all sick”
In the temporary shelters where displaced Palestinians crowd together with their families hoping to be safe from the bombs, people start suffering from stomach upsets, lung infections and rashessaid Abu Taaema of Nasser Hospital.
“It’s hot backstage down there from the midday sun and there are insects and flies… It is cold at night and there are not enough blankets for everyone. The children are all sick. Some are coughing, some have runny noses, some have fevers at night,” said Sojud Najm, a woman staying at a UN shelter.
She fled her home in Gaza City with her husband and their three children and has been living in a makeshift tent for nine days, unable to bathe. At a pharmacy, the owner said there wasn’t much left in stock. People stocked up on over-the-counter drugs, but there are concerns that formulations for chronic diseases will run out.
Without electricity, many people gathered at a gas station with solar panels to charge their mobiles but it was hit by an airstrike overnight, killing several people, said a neighbor, Abdullah Abu al-Ata.
Israel said it killed dozens of Hamas fighters in overnight strikes in one of the heaviest bombardments since the war began, but it will take time to achieve its goal of destroying the militant group.
Source: News Beast
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