On May 29 on North Gaza He was left without the last of his operational hospitals. After two weeks of military siege, the direction of the AWDA hospital decided to fold to “Evacuation orders” issued by him Israeli army. “They threatened to enter and kill everyone inside or bombard the hospital if we did not evacu Mohammed Salha. It wasn’t a lantern. In the last 20 months, the hospital had suffered 28 direct attacksaccording to an Oenegés coalition, and had been invaded twice. One of the attacks killed a nurse with a shot in the chest; another buried two doctors of Doctors Without Borders (MSF). The medicine warehouse or the desalination plant also flew. Without more alternative to get out of there, injured and sick had to be transferred to shoulders for 300 meters to the ambulances, after the military denied them access.
Al Awda was the last of the six hospitals in northern Gaza, where a few days later Israeli forces literally reduced debris the last dialysis center that remained in the strip. (He 41% of patients with renal failure They have died since the beginning of this war due to lack of treatment, according to the Ministry of Health). None of these episodes, however, is exceptional. He 94% of the Hospitals of the Strip have been attacked At some point, most on multiple occasions, or have been destroyed, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Only in May there were 78 attacks against the health system, half with heavy weapons. “The destruction is systematic. Even when hospitals are rehabilitated and replenished, they are not long to be exposed to hostilities or to be attacked. This destructive cycle must end, “said the OMS.
The result is a gaza where the means to Keep the population aliveespecially from March 2, when Israel He completely vetoed the entry of food, water, medications or fuel. A policy that has perpetuated the new Israeli Militarized Distribution System of help. “Only 30 trucks come up to date, less than 6% of what is necessary While people are hungry and desperate, “said the High Commissioner of the UNRWA, Philippe Lazzarini. The new model, he added,” is a distraction to atrocities. “
To the daily massacres or the devastation of infrastructure, we must add the spectrum of the famine and the destruction of the health system, one of the elements on which the main human rights organizations are supported to conclude that in Gaza “A genocide”. Of the 572 healthcare points that was in the strip, only the 37% are partially operationalaccording to the UN Humanitarian Affairs Office (Ocha). Seventeen of its 36 hospitals; seven of its 15 campaign hospitals; 61 of its 160 Primary Care Centers and 126 of its 359 Mobile clinics. And of all these, more than fifty are now in areas that the Israeli army has ordered “evacuating.”
Shortcomings in hospitals
Inside the Partially operational hospitals The situation brushes the Dantesque. There is no soap For hygiene, or gauze To cure the burns, or anesthesia For amputations. The oxygen reserves They are low because the bulk of the stations have been destroyed. They are scarce antibiotics and the blood bank As soon as they find suitable donors, when there are hundreds of new injured every day. “Donors are too malnourished by famine, too dehydrated by diarrhea derived from dirty water intake and many have liver viral infections,” says the doctor Ghassan Abu-SittahRector of the University of Glasgow, who worked in Gaza at the beginning of the war.
In recent weeks, the Israeli military have intensified the attacks against health centersprotected by the International Humanitarian Law. The employer is usually similar, according to a forensic investigation by Forensic Architecture, a project from the University of London. First they emit Evacuation and Warning Orders; then, They attack the neighborhood of the hospital, generating panic between patients and professionals and forcing many neighbors to take refuge in their facilities; Then they launch direct attacks Against solar panels, supplies warehouses, center plants, water tanks or courtyards where thousands of displaced people usually take refuge. If the hospital resists closing, then Sitian with tanks and armored And finally, lo Invade With extreme brutality. “Hospitals are not an objective, we will never attack a hospital,” Israeli military spokesman Peter Lerner said at the beginning of the war.
Israel’s arguments
More than 500 attacks later, Israel argues by default that Hamas use hospitals As command centers, weapons stores, hiding place for its militants or as part of its underground tunnel network, but rarely presents some convincing evidence. At the end of last year the main researcher of the Criminal Court of Justice for Palestine He assured that those allegations are “rudely exaggerated”while Amnesty International He claimed not to have seen “a single credible test” on the alleged use of Hospital Al Sha Shifa as command center of Hamás. The main hospital of the strip lies now in ruins, calcined as a frame of hell, although in one of its adjacent buildings the activity has been partially resumed.
Palestinians injured at Israeli food points receive attention at the Nasser hospital in southern Gaza. / AFP
In international law, military attacks and incursions in health centers are only allowed when one of the parties uses them with military ends To commit “An harmful act for the enemy” and the other issues a previous warning. But still the medical staff and patients should be respected and facilitate the restoration of services after the attack, something that Israel does not do. In these 20 months, 917 health personnel members have been killed And more than 300 arrested While they tried to save lives, like 70 patients, according to WHO data. Doctors and nurses have later been tortured. One of the best known cases is that of the renow Orthopedic Surgeon Adnan Al-Burshwho died naked and agonizing in the courtyard of an Israeli prison after being repeatedly tortured, also with a broom by the rectum. Israel has not yet returned his body.
War crimes
A UN Research Commissionmade by independent experts, concluded at the end of 2024 that “Israel has perpetrated a concerted policy of destruction of the health system, committing war crimes and crime against humanity of extermination with its implacable and deliberate attacks against health personnel and its facilities. ” Restrictions for fuel entry For generators that maintain health centers, indispensable after 20 months of electric blackout. But not only. After declaring the 82% of Gaza’s territory As a military zone or subject to “Evacuation Orders”, the only two hospitals that remain in Jan Yunis (South), where much of the population is now concentrated, have been right in the boundaries of the evacuation zone and the army has reported that the access routes to the Nasser hospitals and the AMAL will soon be obstructed.
At the moment, he has started demand an authorization In order to access both centers, according to doctors without borders. “In the last 20 months, ordering hospitals that reject new patients and hindering access has been a usual practice of Israeli forces to dismantle the health system,” said José more, responsible for the MSF emergency unit a few days ago. And nothing seems to change on the immediate horizon, given the lack of international reaction.
“The last one that will tell our story. We did what we could. Remember us, “he wrote before he died in November 2023 Doctor Mahmud Abu Nujalia On a slate from the Hospital al Awda, the same with which this article opened. Abu Nujalia died in an artillery attack against the hospital when he tried to save lives.
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