“We cannot think of returning to a normal life in Gaza, and we cannot think of it for a long time. There’s nothing leftpeople no longer have homes, Northern Gaza is totally destroyed”. Speaking during the press conference of Doctors Without Bordersheld this afternoon in Cairo, is Enrico Vallaperta MSF medical contact in Gaza who, together with Helen Ottens-Patterson, MSF coordinator for the Gaza Strip, wanted to update the international community on the heavy humanitarian crisis caused by the Israeli bombs, which it currently holds in check 1.8 million Palestinians displaced and which to date has caused over 23 thousand deaths and 60 thousand injuries among civilians, the majority of whom are women and children.
According to the association’s data, before October 7th on the entire territory of the Strip 36 hospitals were activetoday of operational health facilities there are just 13 left, 9 in the southern areas and 4 in the north. “We as MSF have been present in Gaza for over 20 years, but a situation like this has never arisen before, it is not up to us to say whether a genocide is underway, an international court will decide, but we are in great difficulty” reports Helen Ottens-Patterson.
Doctors Without Borders itself recently reported on its web channels how in the last period it has been directly “hit” by bombs, episodes which have caused the death of a 5-year-old girl on 10 January, the daughter of an MSF staff memberkilled due to injuries sustained by a grenade explosion on 8 January while she was inside a shelter used by the medical association.
The little girl had undergone emergency surgery at the European Hospital in Gaza. Before the episode, Doctors Without Borders had notified the Israeli army that, in that area near the hospital, there was shelter that housed the doctors, staff and their families. The association said it was not able to confirm the origin of the grenade, but that it would appear to resemble those supplied to Israeli tanks.
There is regret in the voice of Enrico Vallaperta: “We the staff were forced to evacuate Al-Aqsa hospital at the beginning of January because the bombs fell 200 meters from the hospital, and deciding to evacuate is always a difficult situation because it is not possible to move the patients. The Al-Aqsa hospital in Gaza normally has 240 beds. Today there are more than 600 patients.”
To those who asked him if during his stay in the hospital he had ever noticed the presence of members of Hamasthe Italian doctor replies: “I never asked anyone whose side they were on, for me they were all patients.”
Vallaperta also talks about the medicines crisis: “La lack of medicines continues to be dramatic for many medical colleagues. They told me about a surgeon who had to amputate her daughter’s limb, at home, without anesthesia after a bombing. And there are many testimonies like this.”
Most of the Doctors Without Borders staff has now moved to the south of the Strip where there are thousands of displaced people forced to live on the streets in the cold, without care and without food. Doctor Vallaperta concludes and sends a message: “We are starting to cure cases of malnutrition, which is increasing in Gaza. But there isn’t enough food. The necessary supplies are missing. How can malnutrition be cured if there is not enough food? No one could have imagined the malnutrition in Gaza. Today there are no longer any safe places, the only thing we can think about is an immediate ceasefire.”
by Tommaso Panza