GAZA CITY
The only way Palestinian man Abdel-Aziz Abu Mandil can soothe his stomach pains is to keep caressing the bandage he placed around this stomach in a desperate bid to keep the lid on his agony.
Abu Mandil's doctor can do nothing either, while his patient keeps groaning in front of him, mainly because the medical equipment and materials that could have solved Abu Mandil's medical problem are now under the rubble of the Al-Wafa Hospital in Gaza City after it was attacked by the Israeli army during its 51-day offensive on the Gaza Strip.
"My pains keep growing fiercer day after day, but doctors here do not have the medical equipment necessary for my treatment," wafer-thin Abu Mandil told Anadolu Agency haltingly because of his pains.
"I do not want to stay here for long and I am really tired of illness," he added.
Abu Mandil, 30, sat on a wheelchair inside a makeshift hospital next to the original hospital. He said it should take him two months to recover from the pains that keep teaming up against his body, but because of the absence of the necessary medical equipment and medicine it could take him four months to recover.
Doctors had told him that the medical equipment and medicine would take time to arrive in the Gaza Strip from other countries.
"This puts me in a bad psychological state of course," Abu Mandil said.
Al-Wafa Hospital was Gaza City's only medical center where medical equipment that used to be scarce in other Gaza Strip hospitals could be found.
Israeli warplanes struck the hospital, which is located in the eastern part of Gaza City, turning it into mere rubble. The hospital was established in 1996.
Hoping against hope
Radwa Eliwa, a 50-year-old patient who had come to the hospital to seek treatment, expressed hopes that hospital officials would manage to bring in the necessary equipment to treat them.
Eliwa had a stroke a few weeks ago after she heard news about the death of her son during the latest Israeli offensive on Gaza.
The woman said her doctor does everything possible to help her get rid of her pains, but without the necessary equipment, these pains may continue to be a permanent feature of her times.
Israel launched its offensive on the Gaza Strip on July 7 with the stated aim of ending rocket firing from Gaza at its cities and towns.
Over 51 days of attacks, the Israeli military killed around 2,160 Palestinians and injured more than 11,000 others. Apart from this, the Israeli attacks either totally or partially destroyed thousands of Palestinian homes and facilities, including the Al-Wafa Hospital in eastern Gaza.
Al-Wafa was not, however, the only medical facility targeted by Israel during the offensive. Nineteen other medical facilities were targeted too, depriving the residents of the Gaza Strip of much-needed healthcare services.
"Israeli attacks on the hospital had negatively affected the services it offers to patients with special medical care," Al-Wafa Hospital director Ayman Ishaq told AA.
He said the Israeli army had totally destroyed all the buildings of the hospital and did not even allow its staff to take medical equipment away.
"We could hardly get the patients out," Ishaq said.
He said his hospital has difficulty making up for its destroyed medical equipment, noting that the hospital could only go back to its former condition through donations.
By Hedaya al-Saidi
www.aa.com.tr/en
