Burak Bir
27 January 2024•Update: 27 January 2024
LONDON
Doctors Without Borders (MSF) expressed concern Friday about the heavy bombing in southern Gaza, warning that vital medical services have collapsed at Nasser Hospital, the largest functioning health care facility in the enclave.
MSF said it deplores a situation in which "people have been left with no options."
"The hospital’s surgical capacity is now almost non-existent, and the handful of medical staff remaining in the hospital must contend with very low supplies that are insufficient to handle mass casualty events – large influxes of wounded people," said the international medical care organization.
It noted that at least one patient at the hospital died Wednesday because there was no orthopedic surgeon available.
"Between 300 and 350 patients remain at Nasser Hospital, unable to evacuate because it is too dangerous and there are no ambulances," it said.
Guillemette Thomas, MSF's medical coordinator in Palestine, said that Nasser and the European Gaza Hospital are almost inaccessible and there is no longer a health care system in Gaza
"These systematic attacks against health care are unacceptable and must end now so that the wounded can get the care they need. The entire health system has been rendered inoperative," she said.
The statement recounted an account by a nurse who was trapped inside Nasser who said there was no staff left in the emergency room.
"There were no beds, just a few chairs and no staff, just a few nurses," said Rami, who preferred to use only his first name.
Israel has launched a deadly offensive on the Gaza Strip since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas, killing at least 26,083 Palestinians and injuring 64,487 others. Nearly 1,200 Israelis are believed to have been killed in the Hamas attack.
The Israeli war has left 85% of Gaza’s population internally displaced amid acute shortages of food, clean water and medicine, while more than half of the enclave’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed, according to the UN.
