What the Israeli military calls a “limited operation” in Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip, has had devastating consequences over the past two days for personnel, doctors and humanitarian aid groups say. medical staff and patients across the region.
The Israeli military’s order for about 110,000 people to leave eastern Rafah on Monday spread fear throughout Abu Yousef al-Najjar Hospital, located in an area where Israel said it would act with “extreme force”. degree,” Dr. Marwan al-Hams, head of the hospital. director, said in a phone interview on Tuesday.
Fearing a raid by Israeli forces, like those carried out at hospitals across Gaza, medical staff at al-Najjar rushed to evacuate more than 200 patients. Some patients were protected by family members in cars, while the seriously injured were transported by ambulance to other hospitals in southern Gaza, including the European Hospital in Khan Younis and the field hospital of International Medical Corps in Rafah.
But even as the hospital was evacuated, Israeli air strikes on Rafah continued. Dr. al-Hams said the bodies of 58 people killed in Israeli attacks had been transferred to the hospital since Sunday and hospital staff had to ask the victims’ families to bury the bodies themselves.
“The situation is not dangerous; The situation is dire, dire, dire,” he said.
The Israeli military’s actions also immediately limited access to more basic medical services across Rafah. Project HOPE, a US-based aid group that operates several clinics across Gaza, was forced to close a mobile medical unit in an area where Israel had asked residents to leave. It provided primary care in the eastern region of Rafah and treated upper respiratory infections as well as gastrointestinal diseases that were spreading among displaced Palestinians crowded into crowded spaces. shelters do not have access to clean water and sanitation facilities.
The aid group also had to close another medical clinic in Rafah, outside the evacuation zone, early Monday morning because six of its medical staff – including a general practitioner, a gynecologist and nurse – lives inside or right next to where the Israeli army is stationed. They will begin operations, said Chessa Latifi, Project HOPE’s deputy director of emergency preparedness.
Many medical staff were displaced from their homes in Khan Younis and Gaza City and forced to flee again with their families, including dozens of children – this time, along with the patients they undergoing treatment in eastern Rafah.
At least two delegations of doctors trying to enter Gaza on Monday to support struggling hospitals in the enclave’s north were forced to turn back due to the deteriorating security situation, even before the army Israeli teams took control of the Rafah border crossing on Tuesday.
A delegation of Jordanian doctors, organized by Project HOPE, is targeting Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza to relieve overcrowded medical staff and deliver needed supplies, including anti-inflammatory drugs. anesthesia, surgical sutures and gauze. That delegation was also tasked with delivering salaries to aid group medical staff in Rafah — cash they desperately need to secure housing and transportation during the chaotic evacuation process.
“We have had contingency plans in place for a very long time, especially as it became increasingly clear that the attack in Rafah was about to begin,” Ms. Latifi said. But “the consequences of what is happening just keep growing,” she said.
Another delegation of medical workers, organized by aid group MedGlobal, was halfway from Cairo to Rafah when it began receiving warnings from health authorities. World Health Organization coordination team that the Rafah border crossing may soon be closed.
Doctors tried to continue on their way. But when they were told that border closures were imminent, “most of us realized that what was about to happen was going to be serious,” said Dr. John Kahler, co-founder of MedGlobal.
The delegation includes an anesthesiologist and a midwife who will support Al-Awda Hospital, one of the few hospitals that can still provide maternal care for pregnant women. Dr. Kahler himself also intended to go to Kamal Adwan, where his organization opened a nutrition stabilization center for malnourished children over the weekend.
Speaking from Cairo on Tuesday, Dr. Kahler described the difficult decision to disband the delegation. If this is the beginning of the long-threatened ground offensive, he said, traveling to northern Gaza from Rafah would be too dangerous, even if medics could get through the Rafah crossing into Monday.
Dr. Kahler said anxiety levels are “through the roof” among team members and their Palestinian counterparts in Gaza as they wait to see what happens next.
“Babies will continue to be born; Injuries will continue to occur; people will continue to die,” he added.
