LAST UPDATE | 12 Jan
MÉDECINS SANS FRONTIÉRES (MSF) has said the healthcare system in Gaza has “virtually collapsed”, with “constant” evacuation orders and attacks on health facilities repeatedly forcing health organisations to evacuate hospitals and leave patients behind.
Telecommunication services were cut across besieged Gaza today, after Israeli strikes killed dozens in southern cities where hundreds of thousands are struggling to survive hunger and cold on the 98th day of the conflict between Israel and Hamas.
In Gaza, an AFP journalist reported strikes and shelling hitting areas between the territory’s southern cities of Khan Yunis and Rafah, which is crowded with people who have fled from the north.
Overnight, the bombardment killed at least 59 people and wounded dozens more across the besieged territory, the health ministry in Gaza said.
The Israeli military said it had killed seven “terrorists” in a strike in Khan Yunis and a further 20 in the Maghazi area to the north.
AFP footage showed black smoke billowing over Rafah and Khan Yunis.
“Does anyone care about us? Why is everyone silent?” asked one mourner at a hospital where a group of Palestinians had gathered beside white body bags of the latest casualties.
Elsewhere in Rafah, resident Fayad Abu Rjeila surveyed the wreckage of a building after an Israeli strike he said had killed civilians in their homes.
“They had nothing to do with anything. People who just wanted to live,” he told AFP.
“Why did they target them?”
Israel’s military said its ground forces and air strikes had destroyed more than 700 rocket launchers in Gaza since the ongoing conflict began on 7 October.
In a statement today, MSF, also known as Doctors Without Borders, said the Israeli forces’ assault on Gaza “has drastically diminished the options for people to find medical care”.
Three months into the conflict, the NGO said the amount of safe space for organisations to provide healthcare to people is now virtually non-existent.
“We’re gradually being cornered in a very restrictive perimeter in southern Gaza, in Rafah, with dwindling options to offer critical medical assistance, while the needs are desperately growing,” Thomas Lauvin, MSF project coordinator in Gaza, said.
“As the assault on Gaza has progressed, we have had to evacuate several health facilities in the north of Gaza, then in the Middle Area. Today we are limited to mainly working in the south, because we cannot work elsewhere.
In short, we’re running out of hospitals. We are forced to leave patients behind.
The NGO said that medical facilities and their surrounding areas have repeatedly been hit by Israeli Forces and been subjected to evacuation orders in different parts of Gaza, particularly in the north, making access to, and the provision of, healthcare too dangerous.
It said that several hospitals where MSF was working have been through this situation, including the Indonesian hospital in north Gaza and Al-Shifa hospital.
Al Awda hospital, MSF’s partner hospital since 2018, was hit in November. Three doctors were killed, two of them were among MSF staff.
“Now, this pattern is repeating itself in the south, which hosts five times the number of people it did before the war, and fewer places to provide people healthcare.”
MSF said the lack of hospital capacity is depriving patients of adequate treatment and proper hygienic conditions, which is resulting in increasing numbers of infected wounds and medical procedures being carried out in “extreme conditions”.
“Beyond critical injuries, many women who underwent c-section are discharged just six hours after delivery to make space for other pregnant women, while some are simply turned away and give birth in tents.”
MSF added that it remains committed to providing medical care in Gaza and called for the protection of hospitals, medical staff and patients.
Today, all internet and telecommunications services in Gaza were cut as a result of the Israeli bombardment of the Palestinian territory, the main operator Paltel said.
“Gaza is blacked out again,” it said in a post on X, formerly Twitter.
Israel’s bombardment of Gaza has killed at least 23,708 people, mostly women and children, according to the health ministry.
The ministry added that it has registered 60,005 wounded, while scores remain trapped under the rubble
Vowing to eliminate Hamas, Israel has carried out a relentless bombardment, alongside a ground invasion, since Hamas fighters attacked Israel on 7 October.
The unprecedented attack by the Islamist group resulted in the death of about 1,140 people in Israel, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.
The charity Oxfam International said yesterday that the daily death toll in Gaza was higher than in any other major conflict this century, with an average of 250 people killed daily.
Oxfam’s Sally Abi Khalil said it is “unimaginable” that the international community stands by “while continuously blocking calls for a ceasefire”.
In northern Gaza, the World Health Organization said it had reached Gaza’s largest hospital on Thursday, delivering desperately needed fuel and medical supplies.
“The team reported that Al-Shifa, previously Gaza’s premier hospital, has (partially) re-established services,” WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus posted on X.
Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN aid agency OCHA’s office in the occupied Palestinian territories, told AFP on Friday Israel was constantly blocking humanitarian aid convoys into northern Gaza.
“But in particular, they have been very systematic to not allowing us to support hospitals, which is something that is reaching a point of a level of inhumanity that for me is beyond comprehension,” he said.
Amid fears of Israel’s war against Hamas spreading, American and British forces launched early morning raids against Yemen’s Iran-backed Huthis, after the rebels targeted shipping in the Red Sea they said was linked to Israel.
Violence involving Tehran-aligned groups in Yemen, as well as in Lebanon, Iraq and Syria, has surged since the Israel-Hamas war erupted.
To embed this post, copy the code below on your site
have your say