Maryam (not her real name) is 11 years old and her life has changed forever. The girl lost both legs in a bombing. One was amputated just below the hip and the other, at knee height, at the Indonesian Hospital in Rafah, south of the Gaza Strip, where he arrived with his mother and two sisters, who also suffered. amputations. All four are part of the more than 67,000 Palestinians in Gaza who have been injured to date in the war with Israel, many of whom, after being discharged, will have to recover in an improvised tent, consisting in many cases of just four sticks and a piece of plastic, at the mercy of the cold and rain. In these conditions, their wounds are at enormous risk of becoming infected and the chances of them receiving the additional reconstructive surgeries they need are very slim.
In December I traveled to Gaza with a team of Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Our main objectives were two. First, provide support to the emergency department and the operating room at the Nasser Hospital, in Khan Yunis, also in the south of the Strip, where we carry out reconstructive plastic surgery and skin grafts. And second, find a place that was further from the front line and where we could work safely, because it was clear that we were not going to be able to stay in the Nasser hospital much longer.
The plastic surgeon on our team was only able to work there for two days before the Israeli army warned that it was going to start bombing the adjacent area. Our team of international workers had to withdraw from the medical center at Christmas, although several Palestinian colleagues chose to continue caring for the sick and injured despite the risk to their own lives. Barely a month later, at the end of January, when I was already back, the hospital, essential for displaced people in Khan Yunis, ended up being almost completely evacuated. At this moment there is a tiny part of the personnel that is still trapped inside, due to the intense fighting in the area, including several MSF workers.
After this first frustrating stage, we focused on launching the Indonesian field hospital in Rafah and equipping our staff with trauma kits. The high risk of shelling or being caught in the crossfire made it essential that all our staff, including drivers and other non-medical workers, acquired some basic life-saving skills, such as applying pressure bandages and using tourniquets.
No other conflict is comparable to what is happening in Gaza. He had already worked with MSF in other conflict zones. I was, for example, in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and I also went to Ukraine, just after Russia intensified its invasion; in March 2022. But what is happening in Gaza is a humanitarian emergency the likes of which I have never seen before. Due to the magnitude of the bombings, due to the limitations in providing medical humanitarian aid due to indiscriminate attacks and due to the absolute lack of respect for the lives of medical personnel and the integrity of health facilities, among others. The intensity of the attacks throughout Gaza, the small size of the territory, 365 square kilometers, and its enormous population density turn the Strip into a death trap from which there is no escape.
The lack of medical supplies and equipment is also shocking and very difficult to manage. The emergency room at Nasser Hospital, which was overflowing with admitted patients, only had two trauma bays available for emergencies and hardly any beds, so most patients had to be treated on the floor. Several of the machines used to monitor patients were not working or were missing parts necessary to function properly. And we had to ration the few medications available.
At the Indonesian Field Hospital in Rafah, although we had a surgeon on our team, we did not have enough painkillers to numb and prevent infection, such as lidocaine, a local anesthetic used for dressing changes and smaller but essential procedures, such as remove dead or infected tissue. It is also the type of anesthesia used for a tooth extraction. And other colleagues working in other hospitals faced even worse situations and had to carry out urgent operations such as amputations without general anesthesia.
Palestinians in Gaza are not a statistic. We talk about 100, 200 deaths per day, but people forget that these are children, mothers and fathers, including my Palestinian colleagues from MSF, who continued working every day knowing that their relatives could die at that moment.
Edward Chu, MSF
Hospitals are overflowing with the injured, but people with chronic health problems, cancer and other medical conditions also continue to have the same needs they had before October 7, now aggravated by the situation in which they find themselves. For most of them, it is too dangerous to try to reach health centers and even if they could do so, it is very difficult to get the medications they need, such as insulin for diabetes, medications for hypertension or anticoagulants for those hospitalized, so that they do not develop life-threatening blood clots.
When the bombing stopped during the brief humanitarian pause in November, hospitals received many patients who had suffered heart attacks, strokes and diabetic emergencies in the previous weeks and who had not been able to be treated until then. Many others died without being able to receive medical care. When fighting resumed on December 1, many more people with similar problems were again condemned to die in their homes, in the schools and buildings where they seek refuge, or in the fields where they try to stay safe from bombs. .
The number of civilian victims of this war is chilling. At the end of my mission, as we crossed the Rafah border crossing to return to Egypt, we saw a large number of Egyptian Red Crescent ambulances lined up, waiting to receive patients in need of evacuation. But they were all empty, because no one came out of there. We also saw hundreds of trucks loaded with humanitarian aid waiting to enter, but the reality is that only a few pass through each day. As the sound of the constant shelling became increasingly distant, it was difficult for me not to think about the Palestinians we were leaving behind; a beleaguered population that does not receive the humanitarian aid it so desperately needs.
Palestinians in Gaza are not a statistic. We talk about 100, 200 deaths per day, but people forget that these are children, mothers and fathers, including my Palestinian colleagues from MSF, who continued working every day knowing that their relatives could die at that moment, in one of the the attacks that occurred at all hours. Every day we said goodbye to them, we did so knowing that there was a chance we wouldn't see them again the next day.
We cannot allow the tens of thousands of injuries and the almost 30,000 deaths caused by this offensive to be treated as simple numbers. They are children like Maryam or civilians like any of my companions.
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